Libera Nos A Malo
by Neko-chan -Silvered Tongue
Summary: With the killing of many Christian priests, the ones capable of dealing with such atrocities are brought to heel and the chess pieces spread out upon the board embark on a journey that will force them to see the true face of humanity. - Pairings listed.
1. Chapter 1

_Title:_ Libera Nos A Malo

_Authors:_ Neko-chan and mhikaru

_Fandom:_ Kuroshitsuji/Kuroshitsuji II

_Rating:_ **M**

_Warnings:_ While the story doesn't really involve Kuro II's plotline, it does have the characters. Warnings for Alois being Alois and Claude being Claude: expect lots and lots and lots and _lots_ of GAY for pretty much everyone, violence, gore, **sexsexsex**, psychological manipulation, dubious NCS (more specifically and somewhat regularly applied to Alois and Claude), demons getting their demon on, Alois' occasional potty mouth, religion, issues of faith, cults/Satanism, and death. From the list of warnings given, it goes without saying that there are a lot of adult themes that will be addressed in this story. We _really_ cannot stress this enough.

_Pairings:_ The ones currently planned are thus - Sebastian/Ciel, Claude/Alois, Will/Grell, Agni/Soma  
- - Please keep in mind that the list above is subject to change (though we sincerely doubt it), and please don't be surprised if pairings eventually get _added_ onto it. Right now, we have a rough outline of what we expect and want to happen, but muses usually have a way of doing things for themselves that usually leave their writers OTL-ing before the keyboard. This will definitely be no exception.

_Disclaimer:_ This is a work completely generated by two rather dedicated fans (of both the manga and anime); we have no intention of making a profit off of this. We just like borrowing the characters for our own type of play and hope that others will enjoy reading the result of it~

_Summary:_ When something comes along and begins killing off various Christian priests, the ones capable of dealing with such atrocities are brought to heel and the chess pieces spread out upon the board embark on a journey that will force them to face the true horror of humanity and the darkness within it.

_Authors' Note:_  
(Neko-chan here!) Yes, I know that I should be working on my other stories. But I'm stuck/have been pondering and dwelling over them for a while, and when mhikaru asked if I wanted to write something Kuro-related with her… how could I say no? This is going to be updated irregularly and it will be long. Very, very, _very_ long. Don't say that you weren't warned! ;)  
(mhikaru here!) OTL OTL **OTL**  
* On a further note, the title "Libera Nos A Malo" comes from the (usually) last line in the Pater Noster/Our Father, which can be found quoted below. "Libera Nos A Malo" loosely translates to "deliver/liberate us from evil."

Thank you very much for taking the time to read everything written above! We hope that you enjoy the story - and comments, reviews, critiques, etc. are welcomed (and looked forward to!) with open arms! Thank you again~

* * *

_Pater Noster_

Pater noster, qui es in caelis:  
sanctificetur Nomen Tuum;  
adveniat Regnum Tuum;  
fiat voluntas Tua,  
sicut in caelo, et in terra.  
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie;  
et dimitte nobis debita nostra,  
Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris;  
et ne nos inducas in tentationem;  
sed libera nos a Malo.

* * *

**Chapter One**

**

* * *

**

Seven-thirty a.m.:

The door to the young master's bedroom opened soundlessly beneath the butler's touch, and Sebastian smiled in satisfaction; the hinges had grown squeaky as of late, and it was satisfying seeing that things around the manor _could_ be fixed (and not just destroyed).

The mahogany-eyed man wheeled the breakfast cart further into the bedroom, setting it near the young master's bed before moving to the curtains; pulling them open, Sebastian fastened the ties to keep them parted, finally turning to the sleeping boy once the early morning light flooded the room.

"Bocchan, it's time to wake up."

Ciel Phantomhive, the current head of the Phantomhive family and Guard Dog of the Queen, slipped from the foggy tendrils of sleep slowly. He had dreamt last night - a vague something with darkness and muffled voices - and was grateful he didn't remember the details. His dreams were never pleasant.

It took a few blinks before reality came into focus. 7:35 a.m. exactly. The smell of tea - Earl Grey, this morning. The wafting scent of buttered scones. A hint of sweetness from freshly prepared jam.

And Sebastian. With that practiced, perfected smile.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Ciel wondered when it had become routine for him to sit up, routine to allow that devil of a man - or a man of a devil? - to come closer and change his shirt, routine to let a waking nightmare wipe the last of his sleeping nightmares away.

"I have your schedule for today outlined for you, bocchan," Sebastian murmured as he began to pour the tea into Ciel's cup, perfect—as always—and never spilling a drop. With the boy's nod, the butler continued: "A History tutor will be coming at nine, followed by an Art instructor, afterwards you'll focus on Geography and Latin until lunch. Afterwards, there will be an instructor coming in from London to review your progress with the violin, and fencing will finish the day. An small break for your regular afternoon tea, and Lord Randall has been requested by Her Majesty to come to the manor to review the Yard's latest case with you."

As he spoke, Sebastian buttered and spread jam on the scones, setting the plate upon the portable table that was spread over Ciel's lap. Idly, he clapped his hands together to brush off any crumbs that might have lingered—there weren't—and went to the young master's wardrobe to bring out his clothes for today.

"There have been many missing persons cases lately—priests, both Protestant and Catholic."

"Did directions come from Her Majesty?" Ciel took a sip of tea and noted the lack of a letter that usually announced the Queen's orders, "Or am I to take care of matters as I see fit?"

Missing churchgoers. It was the sort of business that seemed to edge on ironic. The black and evil Guard Dog of the Queen would have to sniff out men and women who believed in God and angels with a demon.

The scone, on the other hand, was perfectly balanced in buttery richness and sweet tartness. Ciel took another bite. Perhaps that was ironic as well. If Sebastian wasn't what he was, he could have easily been head patissier at any top bakery in England.

(Nevermind the fact that the demon found sweets disgusting and, even after several years of being in the bocchan's "employ," still didn't understand the appeal in them.)

"No letter this time," Sebastian answered easily, pulling out and eying one of Ciel's suits for a moment before placing it back to choose a different one. If Lord Randall was coming… ah, well. Intimidation and threats usually worked best with the man, and it was rather difficult to make a skinny thirteen year-old look threatening.

"But Gray came by the kitchen this morning and delivered "the letter" in person. Apparently, Her Majesty is rather concerned with this case. She didn't want a paper trail."

Finally deciding upon the suit for today, Sebastian gave Ciel his bright smile, head tilting to the side—looking absolutely harmless and the epitome of a competent butler. "Interesting, don't you think, bocchan?"

The said bocchan didn't reply, already turning over the facts in his mind. If Her Majesty was concerned enough to send her personal butler, then obviously the case would be a big one. It rather confused (and irritated) him that Her Majesty would send Randall of all people. Was it a discreet message to tell him to cooperate with the Yard? No, that would be both foolish and ridiculous.

Still, Ciel couldn't help but give a small sigh - Randall was rather like a old, blind dog who guarded his position jealously with mostly bark and a wizened bite. It was tiresome.

After finishing the last bites of his scone, Ciel gave an obligatory glance at his outfit of the day before he stood to be dressed.

"Sebastian, prepare something pleasant for Lord Randall. Chances are, he'll be in an unpleasant enough mood to be thrown off by it."

"Yes, my Lord," Sebastian answered promptly, giving a slight bow with his hand pressed to his heart. Immediately after, however, he once more stood straight and moved towards the waiting boy; setting the suit to the side, Sebastian began to efficiently undo the buttons of Ciel's nightshirt.

"Once we've spoken with Lord Randall and have the information that he will give to us, shall we then visit Undertaker next?" the butler asked as he slid the soft cotton of Ciel's clothing from his shoulders, letting it drag lightly—intentionally?—over his arms, catching at his wrists.

The demon was nonplussed, however, and set the bedshirt aside to be cleaned and worn later on that night, reaching next for the boy's undergarments. "There seems to be something that I'm forgetting, though…" Sebastian murmured, as if to himself—ignoring the nude Ciel to lightly tap at his mouth in thought. "Oh, yes. Your aunt will be in attendance for lunch."

Ciel felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand. The Marchioness was on her way here? Was there a special occasion? He felt his mind race: it wasn't his birthday, nor was it Lizzie's. Some special holiday then? But Easter had just passed and nothing else was coming up.

All evidence pointed to one conclusion: it must be a surprise inspection.

However... though the Marchioness was a (terrifying, fearsome) strict woman, being rude was not her forte. She would have called ahead to announce her arrival, as propriety dictated.

That meant Sebastian had purposefully and conveniently "forgot" to mention her visit.

Ciel felt a twinge of irritation. And being irritated while naked was not his forte.

"That'd better mean you have everything ready for her." Ciel narrowed his eyes but deliberately did not cross his arms. It was suicide to show weakness when Sebastian was in one of these moods, "Knowing the Marchioness, she'll arrive in an hour. If not less."

"Ah, ah," the demon butler murmured as he tilted his head to the side, listening with a small smile. "Apparently, preparing for the Marchioness earlier this morning was an excellent move since it seems as if they're already here~"

Sebastian gave a pause then and quirked an eyebrow at his young master.

"And to think: you're still not dressed. 'What a lazabout nephew I have,' your aunt will be sure to say."

And the demon's smile just broadened.

Ciel clenched his teeth together. It was going to be one of _those_ days then.

The only consolation prize was that, considering the time, at least Lizzie would be sleepy. He didn't know if he could handle a terror aunt, a smug butler _and_ a hurricane of pink ribbons and lace.

Glaring openly at Sebastian, Ciel held both of his arms out to be dressed.

"Well?" he ground out, "It's your job to make sure that I'm prepared in time."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Why so ruffled, bocchan?" Sebastian asked as he guided Ciel's arms through the soft fabric of his shirt and steadying him so that the boy could step into his undergarments. "After all, if I wasn't able to have you ready by the time your aunt arrives in the great hall would mean that I wasn't worthy of carrying the title of Phantomhive servant."

Still, though, the demon butler didn't bother hiding the wicked amusement that danced in his dark eyes—all the while still dressing Ciel quickly, efficiently, and perfectly.

After all, what was the point of playing the game to discomfit his master when there was no guarantee that he would succeed?

_Winning_, as his young contractor always pointed out, was everything.

Winning, as it turns out, was exactly the thing on Ciel's mind. He had no game plan with the Marchioness. She usually swept in as quickly as she swept out, toting her impressive assortment of athleticism with her. Like with Lizzie, it was just easier to grin and bear whatever madness they brought.

As for Sebastian, however...

Ciel waited until he was completely dressed. As the demon knelt down to tie his shoelace, Ciel made his move.

"You'd better do something about your hair," Ciel's tea-wet fingers traced along the top of Sebastian's head, slicking his bangs back. The faint smell of tepid Earl Grey drifted between them like a challenge, "Or she'll call you 'indecent' again."

Sebastian's eyes flashed for a moment, but his smile just deepened in the end.

Before Ciel could pull his hand completely away, the butler nipped at his master's fingertips, letting the boy feel the barest edge of his pointed canines.

"And why should I take that as an insult?" the dark-haired man murmured, smile wicked. "I am, after all, a demon."

"You're right," Ciel answered with a humorless smirk of his own, "But she also did call you 'inappropriate' and that's a fairly large insult to-" someone like you who revels in playing a part perfectly and utterly, to see how close you can imitate and mock humans, "-your aesthetics."

Turning, with his left shoe mostly tied, Ciel wiped dripping fingers on his breakfast napkin. With his back turned deliberately to Sebastian, he said, "And an insult on you is an insult on the house of Phantomhive."

"Ah, and we can't have that," Sebastian replied easily enough, inclining his head to Ciel's back and bowing slightly with his hand pressed to his heart—or where it would be if he actually had one. "There will be no need to worry, bocchan. The Marchioness will find nothing at fault with the household and my appearance."

The butler looked up once more, expression almost blasé—though the look in his eyes gaze away that mirror-smooth calmness.

"But now, bocchan, let us finish with your own dressing first."

Ciel decided to take the high road out and not comment. His morning routine was in ruins and he had to marshal his energy for his Aunt. It was as if his night of restful sleep never was.

Sebastian didn't take much longer to dress him now that there was no more banter. As they left the bedroom, the demon exactly 3 steps behind him, Ciel couldn't help but feel a tinge of dread. He resisted the urge to smooth down his own hair. They walked down the main stairs and entered the dining hall.

The desire to smooth down his hair would have proven fruitless, anyway, because upon immediately entering into the entrance hall there was a cry of—

"Ciiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeel!"

And a pink, ruffled, blonde whirlwind caught up the young Phantomhive, spinning him around and around in circles and mussing any previous attempts that Ciel might have made to make his hair appear neat and smooth for his aunt.

Sebastian simply smirked.

It was all Ciel could to do hang on as the room spun.

"Elizabeth. That's unladylike."

Ciel stumbled a few steps the world tilted in horrifying vertigo. Then gravity reasserted itself.

"Sorry, Mother..." The boy's fiancée pressed her cheek against Ciel's and squeezed him, not the least repentant. It was at least a few minutes before she took an appropriate step back to curtsy to him and Sebastian. "Good morning, Ciel, Sebastian."

It took all of Ciel's composition to make the answering bow (and not hurl). "Good morning, Marchioness, Elizabeth."

"Ciel~~~!" the blonde girl answered back, puffing out her cheeks in annoyance as she eased up out of her curtsy and set her hands on her hips. "I always have to tell you to call me Lizzie!"

Sebastian, however, chuckled softly and stepped forward—no longer leaving his young master to fend for himself, finally taking 'mercy' on the dark-haired boy. "Ah, but Miss Elizabeth—you know that, despite being cousins, since you and bocchan are engaged to be married, you must show a proper form of decorum." Before the girl could protest about it not being fair, Sebastian lightly bowed with a hand to his chest and she sighed unhappily, letting it go.

"All right…" Lizzie murmured, obviously unhappy.

Satisfied that the girl would no longer attempt to (happily) strangle his contractor to death, Sebastian stepped forward once more and gave another bow, this time to Ciel's aunt. "Welcome to the Phantomhive Manor, Marchioness."

It went without saying, however, that this visit would go much better than the previous one. (Mainly because Sebastian had locked up the other servants in the cellar to ensure that they wouldn't be around to try and "help" with things.)

"Hmph. It's been a while," Marchioness Middleford allowed, striding up to both Ciel and Sebastian in her prudent (yet combat-ready) high heeled boots. She gave the both of them a once over before narrowing her eyes.

Ciel felt the blood drain from his face as her eyes fixed on him.

"Ciel, I know that I've approved for you to be my son-in-law, but bed hair again? It's intolerable for your position and age!" She glanced then at Sebastian, noted his slicked bangs and gave the tiniest nod of approval, "At least your inappropriate butler has a learning curve. You think that he'd be managing to get you more decent!"

When she finally stepped away from Ciel, his hair was laden with grease and slicked so completely, it felt like a solid lump on Ciel's head. Inwardly, he felt rather shell-shocked- maybe he should have used tea on his own hair when he had the chance.

"Marchioness," Ciel hazarded, "May I inquire to the reason of your visit?"

"A surprise inspection," the Marchioness answered with a smile that was devilish enough to do Sebastian proud. In answer, however, the butler just quirked an eyebrow: this time, the visit would go flawlessly. His aesthetics demanded nothing less.

"If that is the case," the demon began and bowed them towards the greenhouse, "please begin, Marchioness."

Keeping an eye on her mother, Lizzie eased up to Ciel's side and promptly latched onto his arm, smiling adorably (down) at her fiancé. "I've missed you, Ciel," she whispered so that the Marchioness couldn't hear. "So let's make sure that we have plenty of fun today, all right?"

All the while, Sebastian guided the small group through the greenhouse, discussing the different varieties of plants that grew in it, mentioning their countries of origin. The only sign that the regal lady gave that she was impressed was when they reached the orchid house: all in perfect health and all carrying spectacular blooms.

"They never looked this impressive while Vincent and I were growing up," she murmured, reaching out but careful not to touch the delicate, temperamental flowers.

The demon, in response, just gave his usual cool smile. "If I wasn't able to do such a simple thing, then I wouldn't be worthy of being a Phantomhive butler."

Ciel gave a mental scoff at Sebastian's words. If it was any other day (or more distinctly, visitor), Ciel would have done a few more things to make life harder on his butler. Maybe release the suspiciously missing trio of idiots.

But this was _Aunt Frances_ and Ciel was inwardly relieved to have Sebastian's ever perfect (if sometimes smugly annoying) service.

A small squeeze on his left arm reminded him to look over at his companion. From the way she was biting her lip nervously, Ciel had probably been ignoring her.

Lizzie was a piece that didn't fit into Ciel's life of being the Queen's Watchdog, head of the London underworld and whatever else unsavory business he took care of. Even from his own analysis, there was no value to keeping Lizzie by his side. She wasn't useful enough to be used as a pawn, and though marrying her meant one day assuming the title of Marquis, Ciel was pretty sure that he wasn't going to live long enough for that to be of any use.

By all intents and purposes, he shouldn't have bothered with this girl.

And yet. This was Lizzie. Lizzie, who he had loved before th- _before_. Lizzie, who tried so hard to still love him now. The Phantomhive manor rarely had visitors, but it was Lizzie who waltzed through the gloom again and again in her pink satin-bowed slippers. Sure, she was a flighty girl, but she had never lied to Ciel, either.

And that counted for a lot.

Glancing over, Ciel gave her a small nod. Still, it took effort: effort to soften the corners of his eyes, effort to drag his lips into a neutral line-effort, effort, effort.

Lizzie never knew the difference. She lit up as their eyes met, her faltering smile blooming into a real one.

Ah, Lizzie might not have known the difference—but Sebastian did.

When the girl finally pulled away from Ciel to admire the orchids with her mother, the demon came up behind his young master and lightly settled his hands upon Ciel's shoulders.

Sebastian didn't say a word but, then again, he knew that he didn't need to: much of their interactions with one another came in the form of certain smiles, glances from the corner of their eyes. Gestures and touches, much like the one that the butler was giving Ciel at the moment.

Gently, Sebastian's fingers tightened over the boy's frail shoulders: shoulders that carried so much weight and yet never faltered as the Earl took one step after another, forever moving forward.

_His_.

Sebastian's fingers were drawing a noose around his neck, tightening gently. Ciel felt the soft scrape of the demon's claws against his collarbone, dulled by his gloves. His right eye burned, the insignia within flared in such close proximity to its twin.

It was a calculated, suffocating reminder, and yet strangely comforting.

He had chosen this, after all. He had called the demon unintentionally, but he had made a choice. The noose of Sebastian's hands might have been his own.

Ciel found himself leaning into the touch, his lips tugging into a half smirk. More than simply accepting his fate, he would wield it like a sword and use it to carve out his revenge.

Pulling away from Sebastian, he walked over to his aunt and cousin. "We should have tea in the garden." Lizzie dimpled at him in delight and Aunt Frances' eyes gentled.

Sebastian's shadow was a heavy weight against his back.

The shadow extended—seemed to reach out for and towards the boy—brushing for a moment while something darker moved within it, and then the butler moved away.

"Please excuse me for a moment while I ready the tea service," Sebastian murmured with a slight bow before heading out of the greenhouse to go to the kitchen.

With no one to see, the demon's smile deepened, turned wicked.

His master never ceased to be interesting.

* * *

Grell Sutcliff heaved a sigh filled with long suffering - a sigh worthy of Ophelia anguishing over Hamlet - and snipped another cinematic record. It was some Catholic woman's, who had lead a average, matronly and utterly _boring_ life.

At least when he had his super ultra deluxe custom deathscythe, he could gain a bit of joy by ripping and tearing through the record, his scythe growling and roaring in his hands with feral, bestial glee.

But now... _alas_. Grell gave another sigh and regarded the two pairs of safety scissors in his hands. The edges were already dull and the tiny handles were made of gray plastic. _Plastic!_ How kitsch!

There was oddly a lot of work to do recently, certainly too much for his little scissors to handle. Usually reapers worked alone - they only ever teamed up when there were too many cinematic records for one person to collect. Which was why Grell was standing in the middle of a small massacre of bodies with none other than William T. Spears.

Grell liked working with Will best out of everyone in their division - mostly because Will looked the sharpest in a suit. And he had those amazing, intense green eyes - ones that seemed to flay Grell to the bone every time their gazes locked.

_Ah..._ Grell took a moment to the follow the line of his partner's broad shoulders to his trim waist to that delicious ass and long legs. Thank god (or not) his job came with a view!

It shouldn't have been surprising, considering who William T. Spears (never Will, thankyouverymuch) was.

But Grell was Grell and that oftentimes meant that he was oblivious to things that he _should not_ have been oblivious to; case in point was the fact that William noticed _everything_ around himself. In this example, it was that Grell was spending more time eyeing his ass than he was cutting the cinematic records of those destined to die.

The clean-cut shinigami sighed inaudibly and extended his own death scythe with a mental command: it shot out suddenly, aiming directly at the redhead's face to sucker punch him. With his subordinate thusly disciplined, William glanced over at the other. "Put just as much energy into your job as you do imagining me nude. Because if you make me work overtime-again-you _will_ be punished. Severely."

"Oh Will~" Grell swooned, although the effect was only ruined a little by wiping at his bleeding nose, "You sadist~!"

His supervisor was always so delectable. The dichotomy between his prim looks and his violent actions - it sent chills down Grell's spine every time.

"And don't be silly," Grell took the moment to sidle up to the other shinigami and placed two elegantly long fingers on the knot of Will's tie, "I didn't imagine you nude at all. I imagined your tie thrown haphazardly on the floor," Grell's fingers walked two steps and tapped over each button on the other man's chest, "your shirt open, your vest ripped, your jacket shredded" the fingers walked lower and stopped at the hem of his pants.

Grell gave a smile then - a smile that showed off all the points of his teeth.

"Should I go on?"

William T. Spears' reply was simple:

"The only reason I have not killed you yet is because of the massive amounts of paperwork I would have to fill out for killing one of my subordinates. However," the shinigami continued, pushing up his glasses with a hand. "If you continue, I _will_ kill you and ensure that you end up in the bowels of hell."

And then he gave Grell a very pointed Look.

Of course, William T. Spears also never expected the said pointed look to dissolve Grell into a puddle of happiness.

"Ahh~n, Will~ I love it when you're both logical _and _forceful! Maybe if you send me to hell, I'll get to see Sebas-chaa~n!" the red-headed shinigami did a little twirl, snipping at another wisp of cinematic record in mid-piroette.

"But honestly," Grell placed a gloved hand on his hip and regarded the mass of bodies with an exasperated sigh, "aren't these jobs getting a little... much? This is the third one this month."

It would come as a surprise, then, with Will's particular reaction.

He took off his glasses and folded them carefully before neatly tucking them into his coat's breast pocket. He reached out, fingers around Grell's throat as he pinned the other shinigami to the wall. "It would be best if you neither brought up the vermin's name within hearing distance of me-or questioned the amount of jobs when the higher ups are involved in the case."

Cool, collected-but dangerous.

Grell felt his pulse flutter against the smooth leather of Will's gloves. It was exhilarating, it was breathtaking, it was - well, his vision was slowly going dim. Rather than fight (or more accurately, flail), Grell gave the other man a slow and euphoric smile.

Apparently, he was a masochist. But Will made such a good sadist that it was sooo worth it! And Will's eyes without the buffer of the glasses, piercing into his soul. Grell felt his heart beat speed up and saw little sparkles on the edge of his vision - although that might have more to do with the asphyxiation than any sort of shoujo manga dramatics.

Ah, if he had to die, Grell would gladly do it in Will's arms. (Or Sebastian's. Or that hot new intern's, 3 cubicles away from his desk.) In any case, Grell was absolutely and retardedly happy and all he could do to show for it was give Will loving smiles and hope that Will didn't /really/ go through with his threats.

The shoujo sparkles and hearts-and the incredibly sappy smile that Grell tossed his way-were evidence enough that the red-headed shinigami neither cared nor was even paying attention to Will's words.

The supervisor sighed to himself and finally released the other, taking his glasses out of his breast pocket. "I don't even know why I bother," the clean-cut shinigami murmured to himself. "You're a joke to the department regardless."

Shaking his head, Will looked Grell up and down, eyes narrowed and sharp. He wondered, not for the first time, who the imbecile was who had hired this incompetent in the first place.

In an absent gesture, Will rested his deathscythe against a shoulder: it extended suddenly and neatly snipped yet another cinematic record just as it was beginning to wind down.

Had Will voiced his doubts on which imbecile had hired him, Grell would have happily informed Will that Vice Director Davidson had voiced similar doubts on the day of his interview. A few minutes later, said Vice Director was complaining for quite a different reason with Grell's mouth, hot and _too slow_, around his cock. And a few minutes after that, he stopped trying to talk entirely.

But! How fortuitous for Will to have never mentioned it! Grell had skirted death once again, without even knowing!

In any case, Grell was busy catching his breath - and waiting for the sparkles in the corners of his vision to fade. The red-haired shinigami leaned against the wall, eyed his superior through lowered lashes.

"So, if I'm the worst in the department, what can I do to" -_get into your pants- "_er, improve?" Grell quickly amended and flashed what was hopefully an appropriately remorseful look. "Why don't you give me a few pointers, Will? After all, you're the best, right~?"

William T. Spears just Looked at Grell over the edges of his glasses that he had replaced, expression unimpressed and really rather intimidating (for those not Grell for it seemed that Grell was intimidated by very few things, if anything at all). "Your attempt at brown-nosing is rather pathetic," the red-head's supervisor deadpanned, "and will not improve your current situation at all."

And the fact that he had been paired with Grell in the first place...?

He would ensure that the other shinigami was given paperwork. Overloaded with paperwork. Filling out paperwork for the rest of his unnatural life so that Grell was kept away from the field (where he was useless) and out of Will's hair.

The sharp, cutting -_ah!_- delightful expression that Will gave him sent small shivers down Grell's spine. It just wasn't fair that Will looked like that all the time! How was Grell to defend his pure, innocent, maiden heart from such temptation?

"It's true I'm not exactly suited to this sort of field work..." Grell nibbled on the tip of his pinky, trying not to look at his pathetic pair of scissors. They both knew his specialty was killing. And while _every _shinigami's specialty was killing, Grell was especially good at it. He had speed, finesse, and most importantly, a keen sense of the aesthetics of blood. Besides, it had been this job or being a librarian. Although being a librarian meant that Grell could have worn a skirt. With stockings. And a pair of blood red pumps. Hmm...

"But there _is _something I'm very good at~" Grell couldn't help but grin, the points of his teeth glinting in the dark.

Will just gave Grell another Look, eyebrows raising briefly as he glanced the incompetent shinigami over.

"You mean that you're actually _talented_ at something?" he asked, surprised and not a little bit shocked. Picturing Grell being competent at some activity or another was particularly surprising and, honestly, Will very much doubted that he was actually telling the truth: he had been around Grell long enough to realize that the other shinigami failed spectacularly at... well.

Everything.

Oh. OH. _OH MY._ Grell was absolutely beside himself and wasn't sure how to handle it.

Did Will just...? Ask?

A small glance at his superior's slightly quizzical, completely serious expression confirmed it. Will had no idea what he was talking about.

No no no, Grell shouldn't be surprised. Will wasn't the type to listen to office gossip, and short of handing out missions, they were rarely assigned together. So Will wouldn't know about Grell's (formidable, well-deserved) reputation.

Still, like an actress who walked into a comedy expecting to enact a tragedy, Grell found himself being surprised. And wasn't exactly sure how to go about it. In fact, Grell had expected to get punched in face a few times. (Ahh, Will turned him into such a masochist~)

In the spirit of masochism, Grell mentally shrugged and stepped in front of his superior. What was the worst that could happen? ...that he would die, messily and horribly... But! The best thing that could happen? It would be the most amazing 15 seconds of his life! And Grell's cup was always full! (Even if he only ever managed to be an A-cup!)

"Well, yes but..." the red-haired shinigami's smile was two parts coy and one part adrenaline, "maybe it's just easier to show you."

With that, a few quick battles with buttons, a zipper, and the particularly stubborn elastic of white cotton briefs, Grell was swallowing Will whole.

And it was _glorious._

Grell ran his tongue along the length, worshiping the hardening silk with his lips. His tongue lapped and traced Will's cock to the tip before he took his entire length back in, impossibly far, and swallowed around it. He'd been right: it _was_ the most amazing 15 seconds of his life. And hopefully, Will thought so enough to make it a minute. Or at least 10 more seconds.

When Grell fell to his knees before Will and his fingers quickly unbuttoned his pants, the anal-retentive shinigami had only a second or two to decide that he'd happily put up with the paperwork if it meant that he'd get the chance to kill Grell-

But then the redheaded shinigami's mouth closed around his cock, and Will had other things to think about (or not, as was more specifically the case, since his mind turned blank with pleasure).

It had been decades since he had last had sex: too much overtime because of departments being severely understaffed and because higher-ups sending him out to fix situations that incompetents like Grell usually caused on nearly a daily basis. It was too much additional work to go out and find someone to share his bed, and by the time he returned to his home at night... even his hand seemed like too much effort.

So that just left Will with his tight control and his work-for years.

...perhaps too many years considering the fact that Will's fingers clenched in Grell's long hair, thrusting his hips forward with a muted snarl.

If Grell believed in heaven, he was in it right now. That raw, unhinged, ridiculously sexy sounds that Will was making - it was almost embarrassing how hard it made him. It was all he could do swallow around Will's cock, run his tongue along the underside, and hang on as Will thrust again into his mouth. It was so fortuitous that shinigami didn't _really _have to breathe!

It was such a happy surprise that Grell still wasn't bleeding, or maimed (or dead). A peek up at his superior would have made Grell gasp - if he had air to, that is. A few locks of disheveled hair framed Will's face. Oh, that _expression_ - _Ahh, _if only Grell could have this moment forever, to reply in his mind every time Will looked at him.

Dragging this on, however, wasn't exactly what Grell had in mind. Sooner or later, his superior would probably wake up and punch him -hopefully not in the face! But before that could happen... Grell ran his hands up Will's thighs and began to move in tandem to Will's thrusts, hollowing his cheeks and sucking in earnest. Better to pick up the pace here than regret things later~

The change of pace and the sudden (more?) earnestness in which Grell began to suck Will off encouraged a bit-back curse from the supervisor, honey-green eyes wide and intense in _such_ a different way than usual. So typically cold with contempt and frigid capability, they were heated now with simple lust-desire that Will hadn't bothered to feel for very many years.

His fingers clenched tight in the redhead's hair, dragging Grell closer and fingernails scoring over the other shinigami's scalp, though he didn't manage to draw blood.

When Will finally came, it was with tendons in his neck standing out starkly, glasses lost and hair disheveled about his face.

Rough-edged and carnal.

Grell was both surprised and deliriously happy that he barely felt his hair being yanked about - although at any other time, he would have complained about it, after all, it'd take him _hours_ to de-tangle the knots - but right now, Will was coming hard and rough into his mouth and the world was absolutely perfect.

Well, it could have been a little _more_ perfect if Will had given him a warning. That way, Grell would have made sure to swallow all of it, instead of letting a small, precious amount trickle down the corner of his lips. Still, he softly kissed down the length of Will's cock, and sat back with a contented sigh.

He was achingly hard, and at times like this, wished he were a woman more than anything else. If he were, it wouldn't have been so _obvious _what state he was in. Still, his superior looked fantastically ravishing - or rather, _ravished_. Grell couldn't help but undo the zip of his own pants, catch the drop of Will's come from his lips and slick himself with it.

Of course, what he really wanted was for Will to take him, hard against the wall, right now. Grell opened his legs a little wider and gave a moan. That is, if he could hold out for much longer.

But with the daze of pleasure finally fading—the surprise that Grell had caused to swoop down and take control of him, as temporary as it had been—Will was once more… well. Himself.

"Hurry up and finish so that we can go back to work," he said, doing up his pants once more and smoothing his hair to lie flat and tamed as it had been _before_ Grell's initial pouncing.

The only indicator that he was still affected by their actions, however, was the fact that the shinigami's voice retained a bit of its initial huskiness.

…but who knew? Maybe a frigid, contemptuous Will would still turn Grell on.

Maybe.

As it happened, a frigid, contemptuous Will _always_ turned Grell on. The problem on hand, however, was not being turned on, but about _getting off_.

Grell made a small, frustrated noise in the back of his throat. Will's work ethic was certainly admirable, and that made him a nice catch for any girl -or gender-confused shinigami. But Grell had hoped that he'd be a bit... slower... to recover from all that.

But! An idea! Ever the optimist, Grell bit his lip and -alas!- slowed his hand. The red-haired shinigami looked up and looked imploringly through his lashes.

"Well, if you help me... we can get back to working faster."

"I can't believe how incompetent you are," Will said with a much put-upon sigh.

And, needless to say, the demonstration of Grell's competency in at least _one_ area was very much forgotten because if Will _did_ take the time to think about it, he'd be horrified at his reaction—the loss of control and just how driven by basic, primeval desire he had succumbed to. So the easiest thing to do was just pretend that it never happened, ensure that it never happened _again_, and hurry Grell up so that they could get back to work and clocking in for overtime.

(Will made a note, too, to do his very best to make sure that he and Grell would never be partnered again to be guaranteed that… _that_… never happened again.)

Knowing that his movements were clumsy, more mechanical than organic—and most definitely _not_ sensual—the normally prim shinigami knelt at Grell's side, pushed the annoyance's hands away, and then leaned down to take the crown of the other's erection into his mouth, sucking at it lightly.

_Insanity must be catching, because no one in their right mind—myself-would ever do this otherwise_, Will thought to himself as he swallowed again and hoped that Grell would just hurry it up already since they were already overbooked and behind schedule.

"_Ahhhhhhhnn~"_

It was amazing, it was incredible, it was was was- Grell's brain dissolved in a fit of fizzy bubbles of happiness.

There was no way that his superior, William T. Spears was was was-! His mouth was-! After all, it was one thing if the old men at the office turned out to be interested, but Will? _Will?_

But no! What was Grell doing, thinking of other people at a time like this? Especially with Will's mouth on him! Moving even! Ahhh, this was the happiest day of his liiiife~

Grell gave a low, encouraging moan and carded his hand through Will's hair, careful not to pull even though he was quickly becoming undone. He was a lady after all, and there were proper manners for this sort of thing.

"Mmm, Will, if you - ahh- keep going, I'm going to-!" Grell's emerald eyes were already half-slitted with pleasure. Still, with Will's mouth _right there and unyielding and perfect_, Grell would drag it on for as long as he could!

Unfortunately for Grell, Will most definitely didn't want it dragging on for as long as possible—they had cinematic records to look over, the beginnings of a mystery to investigate, and it was rather difficult to do said investigation with his so-called "partner" writing about on the floor and going on about how he was going to come but not actually _doing_ it.

It was rather irritating.

(But, then again, most things about Grell was irritating, so why should this be any different than all the rest?)

Checking a sigh as Grell went about wailing like a cat in heat, he swallowed deep and sucked hard, eyes meeting Grell's as his gaze gave a very blatant command: Come. Now.

It was the exact moment that their eyes met that Grell fell completely and absolutely silent. Will's commanding green gaze held him utterly still

Then, inexplicably, those eyes narrowed and Will's mouth swallowed around him. Grell arched and came with a silent gasp.

It was a few moments before he could catch his breath, do anything but lay there, eyes glazed with pleasure. Then Grell sat up, lips pulling with a teasing smirk. He caught Will's face in both hands, entwined long, perfectly manicured fingers in inky black tresses and kissed the other man.

Perhaps it was out of shock that Will opened his mouth to Grell. In any case, their tongues met somewhere in the mess of saliva and seed, burning hot and viscous. Grell would have grinned if he could - of course Will wouldn't have swallowed. He'd have to help, apparently.

And perhaps Grell should have remembered that Will bit: both metaphorically with his words and… well. Literally.

The (usually, but not always) paper-pushing shinigami snarled, biting the tongue that had invaded his mouth, and pushed Grell away, shifting to pin the redhead down, fingers tight and unrelenting around the other's wrists. Will turned to the side, spitting out Grell's come, and then proceeded to direct a curious stare at the man beneath him.

"_Enough_. You've had your fun," he snapped, temper slipping and turning his eyes bright as his fingers tightened around Grell's wrists to the point that the redhead would be sporting bruises in the shape of Will's fingers.

When this was done and over with, Grell would be buried beneath a mound of paperwork for an eternity, with no hope of promotion, release, or salvation—an endless purgatory of forms and office work that would chain him to his desk _forever_.

It was a good thing Grell wasn't a mind reader. Paperwork was entirely unsexy, and fortunately (or unfortunately), Will was exactly the opposite.

The red-haired shinigami ran his bruised tongue across his lips, tasting copper and reveling in it. His hands scraped uncomfortably against cobblestone and Will's hands were like an iron band around his wrists.

How simply _delightful!_

It seemed that Will was quite a sadist - and that suited Grell just fine. Perfectly, in fact. He was thrilled to be rediscovering himself to be quite the masochist in his partner's presence.

With his lips gleaming and blood red, Grell grinned with all his teeth. "Are you going to punish me then?"

"Yes," Will answered, smile coldly vicious as he looked down at the long-haired shinigami. "Desk work for the rest of your life."

Sadist, indeed.

Grell blinked. Then sighed a bit wistfully. Oh Will was just sooo _Will_. And that's what Grell found attractive about his superior. Not to mention that taboo office romances were so sneakily sexy! Making out by the copy machine! A fond grope by the coffee maker! A hearty and steamy session in the cubicle!

Speaking of which...

"Well, at least I'll be able to blow you under a desk sometime," Grell arched his back and just barely managed to lick Will's lips, "It'd be so great for work morale!"

Will recoiled in… well, _shock_.

Did the other shinigami not have any sense of self-preservation? …then again, Will did have to take into consideration that he was thinking such thoughts about a shinigami who had, very happily, "duked it out" with a demon and intended to make it into a romantic liason…

Grell was a nutcase and should have been handed over to their version of Bedlam because there was no other place that made sense for him—certainly not the division that Will headed.

Add on the fact that Grell seemed to believe that this… _this _would be continuing…?

Will's answer, once again, was succinct: "No."

"But you'll like it!" Grell pouted and fluttered his eyelashes. Evidence really showed that Will had liked it tonight. And Grell wasn't about to let him forget it anytime soon!

Really, Will was just being... shy! He was like a sullenly hot, bashful Hamlet - rejecting his true love Ophelia (who was played by none other than Grell himself) due to the conflicts in his heart! Of course, they didn't need that bit where Ophelia's father sleeps with Hamlet's mother, the poor dear. And Grell wasn't about to jump in a lake and drown himself anytime soon - just think what would happen to his hair! What what _what_ had Ophelia been thinking?

"Besides, you'd have to admit it would be..." Grell fished around for something that sounded professional, "convenient! Efficient, even!"

"No," Will answered simply enough, just… flat-out refusing to even acknowledge the hopeful pitter-patter of Grell's heartfelt delusions. One should never encourage a nutcase—it just made their problems worse (and other people being forced to deal with them, as well, much as Will was very much starting to realize).

His fingers tightened warningly around Grell's wrists—hoping that the other wouldn't do anything stupid, though Will wasn't holding his breath for _that_—before finally releasing the other shinigami.

"We've wasted enough time with unnecessary things. Go back to work," the efficient supervisor ordered, reaching out and picking up his deathscythe once more, resting it idly on a shoulder as he looked down at the redhead, eyes cold and unreadable once more.

"Oh all right, Willums - what ever you say dear~" Grell (elegantly, gracefully) tucked himself back in and flounced onto his feet.

I mean, _really_, Grell wasn't adverse to work. He was in the Collections Department for a reason, albeit not for paperwork. He'd just end up giving those poor, tasteless documents a faaaabulous makeover - as chains of hearts or stars or bitsy!Sebaschans! Ohh, that idea was positively darling~!

Besides, if Grell was demoted to paper shuffling, it really wouldn't take him too long to re-promote himself back into field work. General Supervisor Lancaster had been casting lingering looks (not to mention lingering hands) at Grell for a few months now. While the man was an oaf (and ugly to boot), sometimes sacrifices needed to be made in the name of true love! Besides, Will wouldn't refuse orders that came _above_ him in the chain of command, the poor straight-arrowed dear.

...maybe if he did Lancaster a particularly good "favor," he'd even convince him to give Willums less hours! Grell snuck a glance over at his partner and gave him a warm smile. Oh, he was so overworked~ He looked like he needed more vacation time, with yours truly of course!

So, needless to say, Grell was far far faaaar from giving up. But for now, he hummed a bar from some human dittle -something about being "pretty and witty and gay"- and went back to cutting dull cinematic records. With flourish!

* * *

Ciel Phantomhive finally allowed himself to breathe a sigh a relief as the carriage rounded the corner and officially left his estate. A whole morning and most of an afternoon wasted.

On top of that, he was also sporting a small, but insistent headache. It was thanks to Lizzie, of course - she had been so excited to show Ciel her new rose perfume that she'd sprayed it directly into his nose. And like all of Lizzie's farewell presents, it couldn't be easily cleaned off and tasted _pink._ Ciel resisted the urge to rub at his temples.

"We're leaving." Ciel didn't need to see Sebastian to feel the demon's shadow on his back. The sooner they headed out for the Undertaker's and started gathering clues, the sooner Ciel would start feeling productive again. Ironically enough, thanks to Lizzie, he wouldn't have to smell the Undertaker for once.

"Of course," Sebastian said in answer, not bothering to hide his amused smile from Ciel: it flavored the tone of his voice, as well, and the demon knew that that would just irritate the young lord even further. "I'll go and fetch the carriage."

And since it was Sebastian and Sebastian was nothing if not exceptionally competent, it wasn't much longer before the demon was helping his contractor into the carriage, easing in after Ciel, and rapping on the carriage roof to signal the driver to start towards London.

The ride was uneventfully swift and after what seemed a few moments, Sebastian was guiding the boy off the carriage. Ciel couldn't help but notice how cold and hard the butler's hand was under his glove. It was appropriate, at least.

After a few steps, the mortuary loomed into focus. The dark, cobweb encrusted walls seemed to mar the bright, sunny horizon. Though the streets were fairly crowded this time of day, pedestrians gave the building a wide berth.

Biting back a sigh, Ciel stepped off cobblestones and pushed open the creaking door.

"Undertaker. We're here for information."

"Still putting off my offer of making you a custom coffin?" came the shinigami's creaking, eerie voice from the innards of the building. "You know that people like you don't live for very long, Earl…"

"The information, only," Sebastian commented before Ciel could start his annoyed correction at Undertaker's words. Though the mortician acted odd and otherwise unassuming (though exceptionally odd to most other people), he knew the Phantomhive heir well—and what usually raised the boy's ire.

They couldn't afford to waste time, but the demon still couldn't help but be amused.

"You know the deal… heh heh heh… And this time, I want _the Earl_ to make me see Nirvana."

Ciel refrained from putting his face in his hands. Today was slowly slipping from "terrible" to "horrible." The headache he was trying to ignore took this moment to start pounding at his temples - it reminded him of Finny weeding the garden.

Still, like the Undertaker said, he did know the deal. With a determined sigh, Ciel shoved his butler a few feet past the doorframe and shut the door in Sebastian's nose. The smug bastard.

Turning, Ciel shot the Undertaker with a glare. He _would_ make this man laugh. A few weeks ago, he had overheard his servants making jokes on the foyer. Finny's were... well, Ciel _really_ didn't think that jokes ended in "happily ever after." Maylene's jokes had excessive amounts of... inappropriate relations about men and... other men? Boys? Ciel tried not to think too hard about it. At least Bard's seemed... usable.

Ciel took a breath.

"A pirate with a peg leg, a hook hand, and an eyepatch walks into a bar. An English gentleman at the bar buys him a drink and asks him how he lost his leg. The pirate says that a shark ate it. The gentleman asks how he lost his hand. The pirate says that it was during a swordfight. Then the gentleman asks how he lost his eye. The pirate pauses, and then admits that it was because a seagull dropping fell in his eye. The gentleman is appalled - how did something like that happen? he asks."

Ciel paused, and glared straight at Undertaker, "Well, the pirate says, it was my first day with my hook."

"AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

Figuring that Ciel had—surprisingly—managed to make the Undertake laugh considering how loud that laughter was (to the point of once more breaking off the sign on the front of the building), Sebastian finally stepped back into the mortuary.

Seeing Undertaker sprawled out over one of his coffins, still shuddering with delight, Sebastian raised an eyebrow as he looked at his contractor. "Bocchan, commendable job."

It seemed as if his master wasn't _completely_ at odd's ends without him.

Ciel gave a little huff of irritation and gave his butler a small glare under the fringe of his lashes. He'd have to take more note of Bard's jokes, it seemed. At least he didn't waste too much time here.

"So," the earl turned to Undertaker, his features hard and all business (despite the slight pinking of his cheeks that refused to disappear), "We're here for information about the recent Protestant and Catholic murders."

Undertaker still continued to chuckle, though it was obvious that he was trying his best to get himself under control—a difficult thing to do considering the fact that he hadn't expected Ciel to actually make him laugh in the first place. After all, the young nobleman had managed to do so only once more. But it appeared as if Ciel had been practicing since then.

Ah, well. Perhaps it meant that he would see Nirvana more often…?

"There isn't much information about the murders," the mortician admitted as he made tea, offering up the beakers to Ciel and his butler. "But that, in actuality, isn't very surprising. The bodies were sacrificed and the souls were gone. Who, I wonder, would have that sort of power?"

The Undertaker tilted his head to the side as he turned his hidden gaze to Sebastian.

The demon in question just smirked.

Ciel gave both of them a distinctly unimpressed _look_.

If souls were gone, then a demon - Sebastian? No, Sebastian's aesthetics were too perfect to let him snack on random (and thoroughly uninteresting) souls. Unless of course, Sebastian was using these souls to bait him into a game of sorts: it would amuse the demon to see how long Ciel could run in circles until he figured out that the culprit was his own loyal (ha!) butler. It would be the first time Sebastian took their game to this large of a scale. A small, foolish part of Ciel hoped that it wasn't Sebastian, would never be Sebastian, but that was quickly quashed down with his rational mind.

He would find out the culprit, no matter who, and divvy out justice. That was the role of the Watchdog.

"Is that all you have to tell me?" Ciel Phantomhive demanded, his left eye bright and hard as a sapphire. Despite the question being spoken to Undertaker, he was looking directly at Sebastian.

"No," Undertaker answered, bemused at the look that Ciel was now giving his demon—so little trust that the tiny master had for his ever-so-loyal butler! Children these days had such a lack of faith.

…the same, too, as the priests who died.

"The men who died were all high-ranking religious officials."

Ciel noted his butler's lack of response and turned back to Undertaker, his expression carefully neutral. "High-ranking religious, pious men, dead from having their souls stolen," his lip quirked in a small smirk, "how ironic."

His only suspect was Sebastian - since Sebastian was the only demon he's met. Still, he knew better than to limit his search to that. There were other demons, of course. It just seemed too inanely stereotypical: Priests with their souls stolen by a demon.

"We're leaving." Ciel gave a nod to Undertaker and instead of waiting for Sebastian to open the door for him, stepped out first. "I'm sure that Lord Randall's grown insane of sitting in the waiting room," Ciel's smile didn't reach his eyes, "and that, of course, is the perfect time to acquire some answers."

Before Ciel could completely leave, however, Undertaker couldn't resist giving over one last tidbit of information since the Earl had done such a fantastic job with the joke: "Just because a man is high-ranking does not make him necessarily religious. Or pious. Or faithful," the shinigami said with a small chuckle, closing the door after the young nobleman.

Once outside, Sebastian opened the carriage door for his contractor, stepping into the small confines with Ciel. He knew that an interrogation would probably be following—

But one that he would look forward to participating in since it seemed as if his bocchan had so little faith in his demon aesthetics.

Said demon raised an eyebrow at Ciel.

Ciel merely looked out the window, a neutral expression slammed onto his face. Of course, he had wanted to retort to Undertaker, _of course_ he knew that. Religion was just a way for humans to block out the bleak reality of life, to fool themselves into thinking that in their darkest hour, a bright savior would appear. His mother had been religious, pious, faithful and in the end, nothing had saved her, nor his father, nor himself.

Those in religious power were often the culprits of horrifying events, leading those blindly faithful to do anything. Like the cult that branded him. Ciel mentally steeled himself against a wave of nausea. The moment passed and Ciel kept his gaze on the scenery outside the window, ignored that amused-collected-exasperated-_infuriating_ expression that he knew Sebastian was wearing.

"I've never seen you meet with other demons. Are all demons always so solitary?"

"Some are. Others aren't. Some prefer to lead a band of kin in whatever goal he or she has in mind. On the other hand, some prefer to work alone," came the ready answer. It would have been obvious to Ciel, too, of which kind his own demon allied himself with.

Besides that, it was always so much more cumbersome to work with other demons: they always expected a portion of the prize for themselves—something that Sebastian had never enjoyed dealing with since he, without fault, always carried out the more complicated parts of the plans.

He was selfish, too.

The thought of ever having to share Ciel's soul with another, letting another demon close with hunger in his eyes…? Letting another touch his contractor…?

The light within the carriage deepened, darkened for a moment before passing, and Sebastian's gaze remained trained upon Ciel.

"I don't like playing with others."

Ciel allowed himself a genuine smile to Sebastian's answer. It was so very, very typical of his demon.

"I didn't think that you did." The earl turned his head and finally let their gazes meet, his own eye sparkling mirth. Then, it was gone and his expression schooled still once more. "Is this incident truly caused by a demon? And if so, do you know of them?"

"With the lack of souls for shinigami to collect, I do believe that this is the work of a demon. As to who it might be…" Sebastian shrugged a little, the red of his eyes deepening as he continued to meet his bocchan's gaze. "I won't know for sure until we have more information: the way that the priests were murdered, visiting the sites in Rome so that we can inspect them firsthand. After all, my lord, there are many demons for one to call upon."

Ciel could, perhaps, consider himself lucky that Sebastian had answered his call and not another.

"Really?" Ciel caught the small flicker of blood red in Sebastian's eyes, felt an answering heat in his own right eye, "So I might have called upon a demon other than you?"

Not for the first time, Ciel wondered about the circumstances of their meeting. To this day, he still wasn't sure whether Sebastian was summoned as a result of the cult's ritual bloodbath or Ciel's pure desperation. He never questioned the results - he'll never question if he _deserves_ Sebastian; it's an exercise in futility and Ciel never dwells on those - but sometimes, like today, he wondered about how Sebastian went about choosing his contracts. Doubtless, he's had plenty.

He wondered if all of them end in the same way (Most likely) and if Sebastian will even remember him in a few centuries (Definitely not).

"So, Rome is it?" Ciel reined his thoughts back to the task at hand. "I've never been there before."

Sebastian smiled at both of Ciel's questions-though he didn't answer the first: the young nobleman could have summoned a different demon, but thete was something within Ciel's soul that had resonated with Sebastian, and he had managed to answer the cry within the darkness first. First to claim and thus, Ciel was his and his alone.

After a moment, however, Sebastian gave an answer to Ciel's second question: "Yes, the clues will eventually be guiding us to Rome-so we might as well just immediately go there before the murders in England worsen. Rome is..."

The demon paused for a moment, finally shaking his head with a smile as he fell silent.

The Phantomhive Manor loomed into view before Ciel finally replied, "I take it you've been there then."

Knowing his demon, the last time Sebastian was at Rome was probably during the Roman Empire. Perhaps whispering sweet honeyed poison in an Emperor's ear. It seemed appropriate somehow.

What was not appropriate was the odd image of Sebastian in a toga. Ciel bit the inside of his cheek as the carriage rattled to a stop. Definitely strange.

He had barely stepped into the main hall when a loud, baritone echoed through the foyer, followed by heavy hurried steps. Ciel expected it and greeted Lord Randall with a raised eyebrow.

"Ciel Phantomhive - do you know how long I was kept waitin-"

"Lord Randall. The pleasure is all mine." Ciel abruptly cut the man off, decided he liked that shade of red on that inflated face, "Unfortunately, I have other engagements. I'll be leaving for Rome shortly."

"Rome?" the man stuttered, his face turning a blotchy shade of purple. A little more and it would match his navy uniform. "Do you know how long I've been waiting? Why on earth would y-"

"I'll be once again solving murders that the Yard can't, of course," Ciel gave the man a slow, honeyed smile - one that he learned from a demon himself, "If you'll excuse me. Sebastian, see Lord Randall out."

And with that, he turned with a sharp snap of heeled boots against marble and headed towards his study. Finally, his headache was starting to clear up.

"If you would please follow me, Lord Randall," Sebastian said as he settled a hand at the small of the Yard's chief's back to effortlessly guide the older gentleman to the doors of the mansion.

Even with Lord Randall still protesting, the bemused demon settled the arrogant man's cape about his shoulders and, before the policeman realized what was going on, tucked him into the carriage and sent him on his way.

Knowing that the edge of Ciel's temper had blunted with his treatment of Lord Randall, Sebastian headed up the grand staircase to his bocchan's study-Ciel's typical retreat in that only Sebastian was allowed access out of all of the servants.

"Lord Randall was sent on his way," the demon butler commented idly as he helped the boy out of his traveling clothes.

Ciel gave a small nod of acknowledgment as he allowed his coat to be unbuckled, his gloves to be slowly peeled off cold fingers. The study calmed him, as it always did. The large mahogany desk once reminded him of his father. In recent years, Ciel had made it his own with haphazard piles of files across its polished veneer.

Taking a seat in the large arm chair, Ciel idly flipped through the Funtom Company's quarterly sales report. His new product - a chewy toffee-like candy made from gum sap - was selling well. Its invention was mainly to Finny - who knew that you could blow bubbles with it? Apparently, an idiot.

Ciel leaned back into the chair, "We'll be leaving first thing tomorrow."

The butler set aside the coat and gloves for a moment, both neatly creased and folded impeccably. They were placed upon one of the chairs against the wall, discarded for the moment so that the demon could focus upon his young contractor.

"You wish to leave so soon?" Sebastian asked idly, coming up behind Ciel. He hovered for a moment, fingertips teasingly brushing against the nape of Ciel's neck before reaching around the boy to gather the books that he was done with.

Hiding a bemused smile, the demon went to put them away, though a sidelong glance allowed him to watch his contractor.

"I don't have a reason to wait," Ciel said with cool confidence, despite biting back the urge to twitch away from Sebastian's ghosting hands, "The sooner we finish with Her Majesty's requests, the better."

The young earl closed his report with an audible _snap_. "Make the necessary preparations, Sebastian."

* * *

Similar preparations were going on at the Trancy mansion, as well. The Queen's Spider had received the most recent summons, and Alois was anticipating joining the newest game that would span continents.

The boy danced around Claude, grinning widely as he watched the triplets and Hannah pack the things that he would need.

"Olé!" he called out with a slightly hysterical laugh, wrapping his arms possessively around Claude's arm. "Tell me more about Rome, Claude~ Tell me more of the stories where the people were completely annihilated."

Claude Faustus, capable (and only) butler of the Trancy household, pushed up his glasses.

"I've never been there, Danna-sama," he lied easily. Claude had, in fact, been there a week ago, just to ensure that preparations on that end were going smoothly as well. (They were.) Of course, he wouldn't let his master's first debut into the Queen's order be without fanfare. And heavens forbid if Alois was ever _bored_ with anything.

The said boy was looking up at Claude, eyes blue as the open sky. Claude let his own eyes darken in response. The contract between them was a mere formality before devouring this boy's soul. It was an odd, twisted soul - half dark, half light, without any of the indistinguishable grays in between. He was the most interesting thing Claude had come across in a long while.

"Well, then, Danna-sama - shall we be off?"

"Oh, let's," Alois purred in response, tightening his hold on Claude's arm. His fingers dug into the hardness of the demon's arm, licking his lips so that his contract seal flashed and pulsed briefly.

Owning everything before him-

Owning the "fairy" that he clutched so possessively-

Owning power and wealth and loyalty-

Alois' eyes darkened, turning midnight blue.

Claude felt an answering heat in his left hand, the mark of the contract briefly flaring in proximity to Alois'.

"Yes, Your Highness."

In a single, fluid motion, Claude scooped up the boy in his arms. It took little effort to call upon his power - shadows immediately oozed from under his feet, greedily devouring their surroundings into complete darkness. Cradling knobbly knees and sharp shoulders to his chest, Claude gathered Alois close enough for his lips to brush against the boy's ear.

"Hold on tight," his voice was low, edged with power and demonic resonance. He didn't resist the urge to nuzzle against the soft crook of the boy's neck, to press his lips against the soft skin under the boy's ear.

And then he started walking, his shoes echoing sharply in the silent darkness. Despite the stark black nothingness around them, Claude's steps never wavered. Invisible wisps of spider silk stroked past his cheek, trembling with familiarity, leading him to his destination.

Alois shivered at the feeling of spidersilk upon his skin, echoing the press of Claude's lips upon his throat.

The blonde gave a low sound, turning to bite Claude's lower lip to punish him for not warning him more completely about the darkness.

Claude stopped then, turned his head to take the boy's mouth properly in a breath-stealing kiss. His tongue pressed, violated Alois' mouth in moist, heated strokes - hotter now with the contract on the boy's tongue flaring with each contact.

"I'm here, Danna-sama," he lied, softly, intently, when they finally broke apart, pressed his lips against the boy's eyelids and cobweb-soft hair, "I won't leave you."

Alois moaned softly against Claude's mouth as the demon kissed him-lips parting to draw him closer still.

But then the boy laughed, that half-manic sound, when Claude promised to stay with him-he knew that the demon lied because... Claude was a _demon_. Alois had no assumptions, knew Claude's true nature.

Alois shifted in Claude's hold to wrap slim legs 'round the butler's waist, rubbing and arching against him in revenge.

Well, that certainly wouldn't do. Claude stilled the boy's wanton movements by pressing a hard kiss against his jugular. Sweetly and suffocatingly kissed his way down to the wings of Alois' collarbones. Kneeling, he set his fragile master onto a net of spiderweb, pressed the boy into his trap until his fine clothes and hair were sticky with silk and darkness.

Disheveled, panting with kiss-swollen lips, the boy was exquisite.

He unfastened the buttons on the boy's shirt first, unzipped his no-longer neatly pleated pants next - did so with the same, even pace that he did every evening. Alois was open to him like a flower blooming and while predators such as himself didn't usually feed on such sweetness, this boy was a perfect combination of honeyed poison. With his claws still carefully concealed under his gloves, the demon spread petal-soft thighs. He tasted the dripping, nectar tip before wrapping his impossibly long tongue around Alois and swallowing him whole.

Alois moaned at that, reaching down before the spidersilk pulled his hands back above his head. Blonde hair fanned over cheeks and web, sticking to flushed cheeks.

"Claude. Make me come and fuck me like a toy," he commanded and looked down, blue eyes sharp.

Golden eyes narrowed, gleamed in the darkness. There it was - that dizzying, enticing dichotomy of _beautiful-ugly-pure-dirty_. The demon felt himself growl around Alois before he pulled his mouth away. He trailed his tongue lower, greedily invading the boy's entrance, pushing his tongue in as far as he was capable of before he sat up. This time, he ate Alois whole with his eyes.

With some consideration, he took the boy's hands, kissed each finger before forcing them above Alois' head, against the web, watched the shell-like fingernails disappear under tendrils of warm silk. He ripped the half-undone pants off, took the back of the boy's knees and pressed his pale thighs open and apart. The spiderweb accommodated accordingly, twining around Alois legs and ankles, spreading him like a butterfly pinned to a dissecting table.

He gave a small, appraising nod before he buried himself to the hilt, knew that the saliva wasn't nearly enough, felt the boy struggle to arch against his restraints.

"Yes, Your Highness," he finally said, and grinned into the darkness.

Alois gave a cry, body arching and rocking into the thrust. It hurt, a lot, but that made the pleasure sharper still-sex with a demon was fraught with dangers and the pain just compounded it.

Lewdly, Alois licked his lips, lashes lowering as he clenched around Claude's cock.

Gentleness was an illusion. But Alois didn't want it because it would be a lie, and Claude liked lying well enough normally.

Here, the mask fell away.

The demon's eyes darkened in desire, the gold of his irises burnishing copper as this boy - this impossible, broken, beautiful boy - tightened around him. He rewarded Alois' enthusiasm with another hard thrust, felt rather than saw the boy's struggles, tickling through hundreds of spiderwebs.

_Yes, _all his instincts screamed, _Attack now when your prey is in its death throes._

He pulled out almost completely before slamming back into the boy's too-accommodating body. Then he did it again. And again. And again. Claude set an even, unrelenting pace, fucking that unresisting body with inhuman intensity. He ignored the boy's erection, half-hard with pain, instead drank in his mewls and cries like lapping up syrup.

"Danna-sama," he leaned forward and purred against the shell of the boy's ear. His voice was low, but his breathing was unhitched. "Little toy, little whore - you're going come just like this."

To answer that, Alois just chuckled, the sound dark and filled with twisted amusement. Viciously, he bit the demon's throat, blood drawn against his lips and teeth.

"Claude. Claude," he purred lowly. "You always lie." The boy taunted the demon, blue eyes wild with the darkness within, and licked away the blood that trickled over Claude's pulse point.

His demon-though Alois wasn't foolish enough to truly call Claude 'his' after he had seen the results of how Luka had been manipulated-always prided himself on his edged control. And Alois knew that, was aware of his nature-and it was ever so fun to taunt.

The demon gave his contractor an even, level look before taking hold of the boy's slim hips and fucking him viciously. He was probably ripping the boy in two, but Claude had never been particularly careful with Alois and the boy had lived so far.

"Danna-sama," his lips kissed a rosy nipple, licked, bit down on the nub sharply. He trailed his tongue to the hollow of the boy's throat, lapping at the very place that Alois had bit him on his own neck. "I'm not lying."

Abruptly, he sat up and pulled himself out of the boy's quivering body. Once again, he bent over Alois, ran his tongue down the length before teasing the slit. He swallowed around the boy once, twice, again and again, with heat and too-much pressure, sucked the boy's cock as if he was going to devour his soul through it, felt the beginnings of an orgasm, twitching against his tongue.

And then he stopped - pulled away with a lingering lick to the tip.

The spiderweb responded immediately to his power, a few strands dancing forward to wrap, achingly tight, around the base of Alois' cock.

"As I said, Danna-sama," Claude thrust back in, felt the muscles of the boy's entrance spasm rhythmically, greedily welcoming him back, "You're going to come just like this."

It was-understandably so-rather difficult to reply to Claude's statement. Alois was pinned, fucked, used expressly and only for Claude's pleasure. Alois knew that Claude didn't necessarily care if he came or not originally, but now it would be a point of pride for him.

The blonde boy's head rolled back, neck bared vulnerably as his lashes lowered to lid his eyes, gaze veiling.

"Is this all you have, Claude?" Alois continued to taunt, tongue sliding over his lips temptingly. "Even that pathetic geezer at least made me feel as if he had his cock in my arse instead of his little pinky."

And the boy laughed and laughed, the sound rounding out the darkness, ringing through it.

Claude let out an incredulous sigh. With his teeth, he pulled the glove off his left hand. Black nailed fingers circled Alois' lips before plunging into the wet recesses of the boy's mouth. The contract flared immediately, burning as it neared its twin on Alois' tongue.

He ran his other hand down the arch of the boy's spine, sticky with sweat and spider silk, lifted the boy's hips with superhuman ease. Claude buried himself deeper, each thrust rubbing unerringly against the boy's prostate.

_Ahhh_, he was close, but then again, Claude was a demon. He could force his body to go on for hours longer. The same couldn't be said of his human charge.

That much was true, yes.

A fine tremor shuddered through Alois' body as he tightened and tightened again around the demon that had buried himself deep.

The boy sucked lewdly at Claude's black-tipped fingers, tongue curling greedily around the svelte digits: harder he sucked, as if his lips possessively encircled another part of Claude's body.

He arched and arched higher, lifting himself into Claude's hold, bucking back as the demon thrust deep and rough-would have come himself if not for the spidersilk that circled the base of his cock.

The moan that Alois gave, however...

It would have made a whore blush to hear it.

Claude felt himself growl in response, a noise that was more animalistic than the human guise he wore. Unfortunately for Alois, the demon was rather set on his decision not to lie. Claude would not remove any of the bonds on the boy's cock - if Alois was going to come, he would have to do it on his own.

He removed his fingers from the boy's mouth, ran saliva-wet trails down the boy's cheek like a mockery of tears. With a thought, the webbed bonds on Alois' legs released. Claude lifted his legs over his shoulders, pressed the boy's milk-white thighs against his chest, and nearly bent him in half as he fucked Alois with inhuman strength, each thrust rocking the entirely of the boy's body.

"_Come,_" his voice was raw with power, black and sharp and seductive pressure on his contractor's body, "_Come for me, Alois._"

The cry that Alois finally gave was guttural with pain and lust, pleasure making his body feel swelled and swollen and too full-filled already to the brim with the demon's cock.

When the boy came, his come was tinged a pale pink, blood mixed in with the force of his orgasm-finding it despite the bindings that Claude had placed upon him.

Teeth bared, shining white in the darkness, Alois slid a thigh off of Claude's shoulder to hook over his waist, drawing the demon closer to catch him in the trap that Claude had attempted to weave.

"Fuck me, Claude," the young contractor ordered with a manic laugh. "Cover me with your scent, you piece of shit."

Another laugh and another still, and Alois teasingly slid his foot over the curve of his sometimes-butler's ass.

"_Yes, Your Highness_," darkness spilled around them, blurring the edges of Claude's human guise.

The spiderwebs fell off of Alois, unwrapping from his hands, slithering over and away from the mess around his cock. Tendrils of power replaced the bonds, sliding over bruised flesh like raw silk. Darkness flowed around Alois, filling his mouth, oozing down his throat, filling his nostrils. Cool tendrils pressed over his eyes, blinding the boy as Claude felt himself shift from human to demon. He raked hands down the boy's chest, felt his lungs rattle as Alois struggled to breathe. The demon pressed forward, bent down to kiss the boy, his tongue seeking and twining with Alois'. His human form was melting as he thrust in, erratic and deeper. Tendrils of darkness pushed in tandem with his cock, painfully opening the boy further.

With one last, powerful thrust, Claude crushed Alois to him, emptied himself in this beautiful, stupid, human boy.

The darkness receded. The boy in his arms coughed weakly as Claude pulled out. He lifted the boy's legs, pressed his tongue into that ring of loose, bruised, twitching muscle. He tasted blood, Alois, and darkness. Perfect.

The boy laughed weakly as he felt the sensation of Claude's tongue against his entrance, coupled with the slide of come and blood trickling down his thighs.

Reaching down, Alois buried his fingers in Claude's hair, digging in and letting his fingernails scratch and score over the demon's scalp. "You've satisfied me," the boy said, sated and languid beneath the demon's attention.

Those nobles who considered themselves the height of fashion and clothed themselves in velvet and silk never would understand the glory of being clothed in a demon's darkness: left with gaping entrance and essence sliding down to trickle against raw, bruised, and bloodied skin.

Claude fastidiously licked the boy clean, tonguing Alois' abused hole and slowly lapping his way to the mess on his stomach. He took the boy's limp cock into his mouth, delighted in the oversensitive shivers he caused before releasing it to dip his tongue into Alois' navel.

When he deemed the job finished, he sat up, retrieved his master's discarded pants. Lifting uncooperative legs, Claude dressed his master, pulling up zippers and buttoning shirts with the same, sedate pace he did so every morning. His face was a mask once more - not a single hair out of place.

"Glad to be of service, Danna-sama," the demon picked his master up, resumed walking as if nothing had happened, "shall we be off?"

"Let's," Alois chuckled sharply, though it was also obvious that he was softly worn out. The answer mirrored the first one that he had given to Claude before they had gone off, and instead of egging the demon on, he slumped satedly against Claude's chest. His face tucked into the bend of the butler's throat, and Alois yawned and burrowed closer.

He loved it when Claude fucked him because the demon was never afraid to show his true face to the boy.

And though Alois found it difficult to walk several hours later and it was uncomfortable to sit for several days afterwards... their sessions were always, always worth it.

They traveled silently through the darkness for long moments on end and, suddenly, Alois' gave his ringing, verging on hysterical laugh, biting gently at the demon's throat. "Ah, I can't wait to shove all of the pieces off of Ciel's chess board," he said, hiding a smile as he tugged viciously at a strand of Claude's coiffed and tamed hair.

"As you wish, Danna-sama," the demon replied with the same placid stoicism.

It wasn't Ciel Phantomhive that was going to be a problem, but rather Ciel Phantomhive's demon. Claude had dealt with Sebastian Michaelis a few centuries ago - although both of them had worn different skins then. He had (barely) come out on top on that exchange. Claude vaguely wondered if the other demon still held a grudge. The contract he had stolen hadn't been _that_ satisfying of a meal—however, no demon knew how to forgive and forget graciously.

"We're here," he announced and, with that, the darkness bubbled around them and shrank backwards like ribbons of flayed skin, peeling into light. In a few seconds, they were in the midst of an emptied alleyway.

Claude continued walking, his human shoes sounding sharply against cobblestone as he rounded a few corners and turned into the bustling city streets. "Shall I set up accommodations, Danna-sama, or would you prefer to first explore the city?"

"Show me this city that I _know_ that you've been in before, Claude," Alois answered lazily, comfortable in the demon's arms. He yawned, idly covering it with a hand before once more turning his attention to the landscape before him.

Nose twitching when he caught the scent of a stall selling different meats, Alois immediately glanced around to find out where the scent was coming from. It smelled delicious and their fucking had made him hungry.

"…but first, fetch me something to eat," the blonde said, glancing up from beneath his velveteen lashes. Smirking, Alois lightly licked the shell of Claude's ear before tauntingly adding on a, "Please~"

"Of course," Claude made his way to the meat stall, ignored curious stares and hushed whispers as he ordered kebabs of spiced beef, lamb, and chicken. He handed the package to the boy in his arms. Human food smelled like decay.

Then he started his tour.

"Here, we have the Coliseum, Danna-sama," the demon paused in front of the stone monument. "Humans used to kill each other here, quite creatively." In that era, Claude had contracted a young slave who wished for freedom. The boy had used him to slaughter his way through the guards, only to escape into the arena of ravenous lions. His soul had tasted bitter-sweet with desperation.

A few more human-wrought histories later, Claude walked calmly into the center of a circular courtyard, lined with columns of marble saints.

"And this is the Vatican." Lower demons couldn't even step onto the premises; however, demons such as himself could always find a way in. There was no lack of putrid souls in this so-called "holy" place, and though these souls had no flavor whatsoever, they were useful.

"It's dark," Alois whispered to himself, reaching out and caressing a hand over one of the marble saints before digging his fingers into the stone to make it screech from the gesture. The halls—supposedly hallowed—were filled with a twilight atmosphere, heavy with the scent of incense.

But Alois, so sensitive to the eddies—the pull and tug and push upon the light, so like the tides of the ocean—sensed it immediately. There was something tainted here, something rotting at the heart: the religion that claimed to help the poor, to reach out a helping hand to people all around the world… all of the religion's belongings were gilded with gold, other treasures stolen from cultures all around the world.

The blonde boy gave a low, throaty sound of pleasure—the sound that usually only Claude was capable of bringing from him when they fucked—and his gaze sharpened when they settled upon a young bishop. The scent of demon that Claude had coated him with earlier covered this man, too.

"Oh, yes. _Him_," he moaned softly, smile twisting his lips and echoing in his gaze.

Claude made a minute gesture with his hand and like a puppet jerked forward by a string, the young bishop stumbled his way over. This one was already in Claude's complete control, and once he outlived his usefulness, the demon would simply devour his soul. It wouldn't be a satisfying meal, by any means, but Claude had to lure the Queen's Watchdog here somehow.

Unless, of course, Alois had other desires.

"What would you like me to do, Danna-sama?"

"Kill him," Alois giggled as he leaned over in Claude's hold, curving his hand at the nape of the bishop's neck to dig his fingers into the man's skin. He grinned widely, pressing his mouth to the other man's and shoving the bishop's lips apart with a thrust of his tongue.

He kissed the Catholic man, tasting the rotting darkness that clung like spidersilk to his body. He was a toy to be used, same as the role that he sometimes liked playing with Claude—but this toy had no true power and, knowing his demon, Alois was aware that there would be many other men in the Church that were just like the one before him.

So one wouldn't be missed.

…

Much.

"Yes, Your Highness." Claude's eyes flashed crimson before reverting to gold. The demon reached out to touch where Alois' mouth was joined with the bishop's and pressed his fingers into the wet heat of his contractor's mouth. He stroked the boy's acid tongue before taking hold of the bishop's chin and ripping off his lower jaw. Blood sprayed in an arc around them as the man tried to scream, only to find his vocal cords missing.

He placed a hand on the writhing bishop's face and crumpled his skull.

"Satisfied?" Claude captured his contractor in a kiss, licked the blood splatters off his face. He stepped over the still-twitching corpse and walked calmly into the inner abbey just as the screams started.

Alois buried his face against the bend of Claude's throat to muffle his laughter, eyes bright and dancing as his arms hugged tightly about the demon's shoulders.

"Again! Again, Claude!" the blonde boy begged, voice joyous as he trailed his fingers along the edge of the butler's jawline. He nipped at Claude's lower lip, licking away the sting as the contract's symbol flared with white heat.

He wanted a trail of bodies to greet Ciel and his own demon when they finally arrived in Rome—punishment, in a way, for the demon who played at being human and the human who played at being a demon.

Oh, the game was perfectly entertaining—and it was ever so much fun to leave behind clues for the Watchdog to find that had nothing at all to do with the actual case. And seeing, too, just the barest tip at how far his own demon's web reached-

Perfectly, perfectly splendid.

Tightening his hold of Alois with his left hand, Claude whirled amongst a throng of panicked, filthy humans. The thick gush of blood as throat gashed open; a heart ripped, still-beating from a chest; gray brain matter smeared across white marble - the demon had danced this dance before, knew the steps perfectly. By the time he was done, his black shoes were polished with the sticky sheen of copper and the saints along the walls were more red than white. His right arm was filthy with tattered remains of human tissue and there was no one left alive, much less whole.

He wouldn't devour these tasteless souls. Perhaps the triplets or Hannah might - Claude reached out to them with a beckoning of power and felt them nearby.

"Will that be all, Danna-sama?" he murmured, as if they're standing in the foyer of the Trancy mansion, instead of in the middle of a massacre.

"Oh, Claude…"

The answering sigh was a happy one, a boy ecstatic in the gift that his butler had presented to him. Surveying the full range of death all around him, Alois shivered in delight and tightened his arms around Claude's shoulders: for everyone, everywhere, to be annihilated—his dearest wish, though not the one that he wanted to hand over to Claude so that the demon might fulfill it.

Almost childishly, Alois swung his legs as Claude continued to carry him over the bodies and the gore, blue eyes wide as he took it all in: there was no fear in Alois' gaze, not of the threat of death that the demon who carried him could have oh-so easily dealt to him, as well.

One day, Claude would kill him as easily as the demon had killed those around the both of them. But that day was not today, and today was—instead—the day where Alois could rejoice in the utter carnage and the fact that Ciel's game had suddenly become that much more twisted.

* * *

Ciel startled awake, panting as he threw off suffocating sheets. Wrapping his arms around himself, the earl nearly bit his lip through as he willed himself to stop shaking. He hated remembering his dreams - they were made worse in waking when he knew them to be what they really were - memories. He couldn't even lie to himself that it had only been a dream.

"Sebastian," he summoned into the darkness, knowing fully well that his butler would appear despite the late hour.

And of course Sebastian would come: it was a butler's duty, after all, to always be there when his master called.

"What is it, bocchan?" the mahogany-eyed man asked, voice subdued and quiet as he pushed the door to Ciel's bedroom open to step inside. With him, Sebastian carried a candelabra—bringing light to the dim recesses of his contractor's room.

The demon knew what it would be, however:

Late at night with the scent of fear filling the air of the manor, and Ciel's soft, panting breath breaking the otherwise thick stillness of the atmosphere… it was these nights that Ciel remembered and called for Sebastian.

And Sebastian came.

"N-nothing," Ciel tried to focus on slowing his own harsh breathing, "Come here."

Dim golden light flickered from the candelabra, lengthening shadows around his demon. In the sharp contrast of the candlelight, Sebastian's eyes were hooded and Ciel fought against drowning in their crimson depths.

The demon smiled slightly at that, lashes lowering to hood his gaze when he saw that Ciel was staring, breathing still lightly panting. He stepped further into the room, closing the door behind himself as he made his way deeper.

Placing the candelabra upon the bedside table, the butler adjusted the pillows at his bocchan's back, offering up his silent presence until Ciel told him what else he wanted of the demon.

It took a few more moments before his breathing evened. Ciel forced himself to release his white-knuckled grip on the sheets, purposefully leaned back into the pillow, tried not to tremble.

"Stay," he commanded, hated the way his voice hitched despite his best efforts.

Sebastian inclined his head in agreement, beginning to blow out the candles' flames one by one. His movements were quiet in the sudden dark that once more descended, and the demon slipped out of his shoes before easing himself onto the bed behind the young nobleman.

"I am here," Sebastian murmured against the shell of Ciel's ear as he coaxed the boy backwards towards his chest. "I have promised you that I will come to you each time that you call out my name. What happened in the past… I will kill anyone who ever looks upon you in a similar manner, bocchan."

Ciel forced himself not to lean into that deceptive warmth, kept his back rigid and unforgiving despite his heart trying to hammer its way out of his chest.

"Yes," he allowed, his breath a ghost of a whisper.

Lightly, touch deceptively gentle, Sebastian's arm came around Ciel's waist, hand settling over that pounding pulse; with a light tug, the demon pulled off his glove, baring the contract's symbol to Ciel's gaze. Possessively, that hand came to rest over the boy's heart.

"We are bound, you and I. Until the very end, you will never be alone."

Ciel stiffened against the touch, before accepting the heat of the contract and the answering throbbing of his right eye. He took strength from that hand, let it rest as a heavy reminder to his slowing heartbeat.

"Yes," he said again, despite the fact that he hated repeating himself. Then shrugged off the touch.

The smile that Sebastian gave to the back of Ciel's head was bemused—fondly exasperated at the independence that his bocchan always exhibited, constantly striding forwards to do things the way that he wanted to—strong, capable. His.

Carefully, Sebastian extracted himself from the pillows and blankets, once more plumping the bed things so that Ciel could recline comfortably. "Go back to sleep, bocchan," he murmured, voice quiet. "There will be a long journey ahead of us starting tomorrow."

Somehow, the demon's shadow across his body lulled him into an odd sense of security. This one thing in his life, this demon who made his own laws based on his whims and aesthetics, was Ciel's sole point of stability. In the quiet, revealing hours of the night, Ciel silently admitted to himself that everything could fall into shambles around him as long as Sebastian is there to follow his orders, to watch him with those amused, unlying eyes.

It was with this thought that he slowly drifted back asleep. He dreamt again, but this time of Sebastian's smile, razor sharp and comforting.

With Ciel finally asleep, Sebastian leaned over the young boy and pressed a kiss over those closed eyes, lingering a moment longer over his bocchan's right eye. "Sweet dreams, my contractor," he murmured quietly.

The shadows darkened for a moment before retreating so that the pale light of the moon could slip into Ciel's bedroom, illuminating spaces that were originally dark and hidden in shadow.

Satisfied with that, Sebastian settled into the chair at the side of the boy's bed, lashes lowering to hide his gaze as the hours of the night slowly drifted past.

* * *

Claude barely noticed the first rays of the dawn - he could see well enough in darkness. With the last garment unpacked from the suitcase, the demon looked up and surveyed the hotel master suite for any odd tasks he should complete. The triplets and Hannah were still out, each completing the tasks that he gave them.

He was never completely comfortable with this human guise - he didn't see the need to mingle with humans when he could easily bypass most problems by using his demonic powers. Still, his current contractor had needed a human to oversee his power and this form had been born.

The said contractor was sprawled out the feather bed, a thin ankle and a pale thigh shifting here and there between plush satin. The demon walked over and let his shadow linger over the boy's naked shoulder. Alois' silken hair, aglow in the sparse light, fanned out like a platinum halo. His face was soft, angelic in sleep. Claude ran a finger over Alois' lips and wondered what sort of expression the boy will have when he devours his soul.

But that time was not yet now.

Alois stirred at the touch, lashes lifting as his sapphire-tinted eyes speared Claude with a direct gaze. He allowed the demon to touch him for a moment more before finally moving away: the sleek sheets fell away as the blonde moved up in bed, stretching idly.

He was nude, pale and shining against the dark red of the satin sheets. It echoed the coloring of Snow White in the fairy-tale story that Alois had read to Luka once-upon-a-time ago, though the boy knew that there wouldn't be a happy ending in _this_ particular story.

"Fetch me breakfast," the lordling ordered when his stretch ended and he once more looked over at Claude.

The demon wordlessly moved to comply. In the drawing room, he filled the teapot with boiling water, unwrapped the freshly-baked rolls and readied butter and apricot jam, garnished small toasted crackers with a mix of cream cheese, capers, and olives. He carried the entire tray to place on his master's bed. The scent of Darjeeling filled the room as Claude poured a single cup to set in front of Alois.

"Good morning, Danna-sama," the demon said finally, "I hope that you slept well."

"Mmm. I did," Alois answered, covering a yawn with one pale hand. Running a hand through his hair, the boy finally rubbed at an eye as he reached forward to take the cup of tea from Claude. Everything smelled delicious, but… then again, it was Claude who had been in charge of the menu. "What is on the schedule for today?"

The question was asked idly, little interest in any real answer—more interested in watching any and all facial expressions darting across Claude's face.

It was a new day, but one that would prove to be rather boring since the Phantomhive heir and his own demon hadn't yet arrived in Rome.

Boring, boring, booo~ooooring~~

Claude recognized that look on his contractor's face. Inwardly, he let out a small sigh. Of course, Alois wouldn't be content to simply wait for Ciel Phantomhive to arrive. Knowing Sebastian Michaelis' tendencies, they were probably taking the _train _or something equally pointless.

The demon broke off a corner of the warm roll, lightly buttered it and smeared a glaze of apricot on it, before carefully pressing it against his master's lips.

"Well, Danna-sama," Claude's face was a perfect, porcelain of mask of blankness as he prepared another bite. "If I could presume to make a suggestion, I was thinking of doing a bit of... recruiting."

Alois chewed neatly on the roll, swallowing it with a reserved expression upon his face, eyes hooded. Once his mouth was free of the food, however, the boy lifted his lashes to watch Claude from beneath the dark veil—midnight blue shifting beneath the curtain.

"And why would you need my permission if you've never attempted to seek it out before, when you… recruited… in the past?" the boy asked, tone sardonic before parting his lips for the next bite.

This time, Claude pressed the cream cheese smeared cracker into the boy's mouth, the tip of his finger lingering slightly against Alois' bottom lip.

"Well, if Danna-sama would recall yesterday's... entertainment, I'm embarrassed to admit that there's no longer enough people to host a proper welcome party for Earl Phantomhive," the golden eyes met and held midnight blue, "And it would save much time if you would kindly give your assistance."

Alois snorted at that, pulling away for a moment to lick the cream cheese from his mouth and taking a sip of his morning tea.

"Your incompetence is rather surprising, but I suppose that I could help with the plans since there's nothing else entertaining while we wait for Ciel's arrival."

The fact that Claude actually needed his active help when the demon was usually so comfortable in using his own powers or making his underlings do things for him…? It was rather disappointing, actually.

The corner of Claude's mouth twitched up into a smirk before his mask of a face reasserted itself. "Thank you for your understanding, Danna-sama."

He slowly, carefully prepared bite after bite of breakfast for Alois. It was after the boy had eaten his fill and Claude had cleaned away the dishes when he returned to his master's bedside.

"Well then, Danna-sama..." he couldn't help the brief flash of red his eyes turned, glowing in the sparse morning light, "Shall we be off?"

"You seem to be forgetting the fact that I'm not yet clothed, Claude," Alois pointed out, glancing at the demon from the corner of his eyes as his voice drawled tauntingly.

The boy slid out of bed at that in preparation for getting dressed: skin bruised and scratched from yesterday's activities, his inner thighs were discolored in dark shades from Claude's attentions.

"Oh? How remiss of me," the demon said contritely, and did not move. Claude's hand reached out, gently rested against the crown of the Alois' head. This time, he allowed a smirk to form unchecked: "But you see, Danna-sama, that won't be necessary."

He caught the boy in his arms as he crumpled forward.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Claude stepped back and surveyed his work. The boy did indeed make a pretty picture. With a small flick of his wrist, Claude wove the spiderweb tighter, lifting the boy's calves and forcing his knees open further. Alois' hands were bound under him, silken webbing roping along the length of his arms, around his back to attach to the ceiling. Cords of web suspended him by his arms, knees, and ankles, The opulent, organized office Alois was dangling in made the sight of him, naked and spread, more obscene.

Claude walked around the boy, making small adjustments here and there. The demon ran a hand down the unconscious boy's chest, sharply pinched a nipple and watched it redden and blossom between his fingers. He undid his tie and used it as a blindfold, and after a few moments of consideration, stuffed a glove into Alois' mouth for good measure.

He ghosted fingers along the boy's limp cock, across a splattering of bruises, and circled the used opening. Here, he thoughtfully uncapped a bottle of oil, worked its contents into Alois until his fingers squelched and slid easily into loose muscle. Anointing oil, it seemed, did have _some _use after all.

Then, he released his power over Alois. Invisible, the demon watched as the boy slowly returned to consciousness.

He didn't have to wait long. The door opened and the Archbishop stepped into his office and froze predictably. From his vantage point on the ceiling, Claude watched the man take in the strange, obscene, spread boy in front of him, followed his eyes from Alois' pert nipples and oiled entrance, saw sweat bead up on his forehead, trickle down his temples. The silence was only broken by panting. Then, the man was stumbling forward and fumbling with his zipper.

From high above, the demon felt his web tremble as he caught his prey.

When Alois had agreed to help Claude with his recruiting, this hadn't been what he had in mind-spread open and invitingly as a toy for anyone other than his demon to use.

The sound of panting and fingers fumbling with closures filled Alois' ears, the stink of incense and pathetic men too weak to know what it was they really wanted all the while indulging themselves in their own petty sins. It was their disgusting scent that filled Alois with rage, screaming his fury at Claude around the gag of the demon's glove.

The darkness within him swelled, surging against his mind when the Archbishop clutched at the boy's hips to drag him closer, swinging Alois' bound body as he thrust forward: and Alois couldn't stop the way that his back arched, cock hardening at the feeling of being full once more.

But it wasn't Claude doing this to him, it wasn't Claude that Alois would push to the edges of control-and that fact made Alois want to shatter the world.

The boy's anger washed over the demon and Claude couldn't help but lick his lips. The boy was delectable like that, one mouth muffled and unwelcoming, the other full and inviting. Below, the Archbishop picked up his pace, his frenzied movements violently vibrating Claude's web. All too quickly, the man thrust forward and emptied himself in his beautiful, furious master.

The door creaked open just as the Archbishop pulled out, a thin line of come still connecting him to the boy's twitching hole. There were two men at the door, younger and possibly the Archbishop's aides. All three men were frozen in shock. Claude smelled terror and arousal and found himself amused as he looped invisible threads around the newcomers, pulled their protesting bodies into the office.

His little master did the rest of the work.

And his little master still horded the fury at Claude, keeping it close-

But it wasn't the sex that filled Alois with anger, just as the newcomers moved forward to fill him with something else that was just as hard and unforgiving.

One of the aides fumbled with the closures to his pants, giving a broken, hollow moan as he was able to push his trousers down, shoving deep into the boy's open, arching body. He began to thrust, movements rough and wild as Alois' body tensed and relaxed, tightening greedily when the man slammed home.

The other aide tilted Alois' head back with trembling, unsteady fingers-tugged the gag from the blonde's mouth.

"If I be dragged to sin, make it worth my while," the man huskily commanded, knowing almost instinctively what would be happening once this was all over. But that still didn't stop him as he pushed forward, Alois' lips already parting immediately to draw the aide's cock deeper, tongue cradling the man's erection and firmly pressing the symbol of his contract against the vein that ran along the underside of the aide's cock.

The man cried out in pleasure and began to fuck Alois' mouth as earnestly as his brother was fucking the boy's body.

The blindfold slipped over his eyes, however, and Alois' gaze unerringly found Claude's, eyes challenging and wild even as he drew the two men's cocks deeper into his body, moaning around the one in his mouth as his lips stretched tight: an obscene act and one that Alois had only previously done with Claude.

Claude's eyes flickered a demonic red, smoldering like embers as he watched the newcomers fuck Alois like a ragdoll, eagerly winding his invisible web around their souls with each thrust. He shivered as those azure eyes - now burnished midnight blue with fury and lust - snared his gaze, even as the boy's head was forced back and forth, his mouth dribbling obscenely with saliva and precome.

Claude gently tugged on webbing attached to the aide's soul, his power crooning. _Harder_, he whispered and the man below struggled to comply, grabbing a fistful of blond hair, yanking Alois' head back and pushing violently down the boy's throat.

Claude amusingly watched as the boy struggled to breathe, his body spasming in denial. Between Alois' legs, the second aide gave a harsh cry and drove into the boy's clenching body hard once, twice, and was still. The man in his master's mouth didn't last much longer.

This time, the men didn't even pull out before the demon spread and reeled in his web again. Four more men stumbled into the room, their cocks already achingly hard from watching in the open doorway.

Alois panted softly when the men finally withdrew, eyes closing as he felt come sliding over his thighs and over his slightly parted lips. He had seen the new men starting to stumble into the room, and he shuddered in knowledge and anticipation of what would soon be following.

Oh, but the thought of the revenge he would play out when he was once more free and in control...

It was enough to make Alois laugh huskily, eyes opening once more to spear the oncoming men with a dark gaze.

"Think you can do any better than the previous pieces of shit?" he asked the four priests, smile sticky and twisted with saliva and come.

The taunt was enough to make the men start forward, movements frantic-fueled by the lust within and Claude's manipulations without.

Calloused hands tugged roughly over Alois' skin, scratching and bruising already raw and abused skin: dragging the boy's restraints off and bringing him down though his arms were still bound with the demon's original spidersilk.

One man settled upon the floor, gaze hungry as the darkness took over, his colleagues carrying Alois to him: spreading the boy's legs and slamming him down upon his cock. The blonde cried out, blue eyes dazed, and cried out again when a second man thrust in, as well, stretching and abusing his overly stimulated body even further.

The two men rode Alois hard, skin slapping and accompanying the soft, frantic cries of pleasure that Alois gave as he took more and more damage (though never as much damage as Claude was capable of dealing out).

The remaining two men stepped closer, hands fisted to stroke themselves, wanting to be hard and forcing Alois to take as much as possible-and then some more.

Alois licked his lips, anticipation tight and low in his belly. "Claude..." he moaned and let his head tilt backwards to rest on the shoulder of the man who was violently fucking him from behind; his voice was so husky and filled with arousal that one of the priests came from the boy's tone of voice alone, come splattering over Alois' face and chest.

The demon blinked - he certainly hadn't expected his master to remember him, much less call him in the midst of such lust and delirium. Still, Claude honored the contract, lowering himself to the floor gracefully on silken webs.

"You called, Danna-sama?" He gave a small bow, despite the standing priest forcing Alois' lips open and fucking the boy's face hard. On either side of him, the other men sped up, pounding into the boy in unison, in contrast, and in unison again. His master's body twitched and spasmed like an unwieldy marionette, controlled by the clumsy puppeteer of lust.

Claude allowed his lips to twitch upwards as he dragged his heavy, hooded gaze over his master, his toy.

"Do you need my help?" the demon walked forward, leather shoes stepping through the come-splattered floor. He leaned down, reached around the filthy, sweating humans to hold his contractor's hips still, worked a finger of his gloveless hand into Alois' entrance. Maneuvering around the rancid, hardened pieces of tissue thrusting into his master, Claude pushed another finger in and pressed his fingertips unerringly against the boy's prostate and scraped with his nails lightly.

It was that last touch that finally pushed Alois over the edge: he cried out around the priest's cock, choking on the girth as the man continued to thrust into the wet, slick heat of the boy's mouth.

Shuddering and clenching, it was the demon's attentions that brought Alois to orgasm, belly coated and sticky with his own come this time around.

He had become a wanton creature, a puppet that other men used for their pleasure-but the darkness in the cherub-blue of his eyes was terrifying.

Others who didn't know better would have easily said that no soul looked out of those beautifully colored eyes.

The demon removed his hand before one of the men, overcome by the boy's tightening muscles, spent himself. Not long afterwards, the second priest gave a hoarse cry, rammed his cock into his master. They both pulled out with a squelch, the boy's hole twitching wide and open in their absence.

From his low, broken, and guttural moans, the man using Alois' mouth was close, as well. Claude watched the human violently fuck the boy's mouth, Alois' pretty lips stretched around ugly purple tissue, Alois' soft cheeks bulging obscenely with each thrust, and felt an uncharacteristic twinge of annoyance. The demon tugged on the strands of spiderweb connecting to this human, forced darkness and power into it.

_End it, _he ordered, with more force than he intended. Immediately, the man screamed, pulled frantically out of the boy and emptied himself over Alois' face before stumbling backwards and away. Claude caught the boy as he crumpled, gently eased him back onto the semen-slick floor.

True to their instincts, the other humans quickly fled the room.

The demon leaned over his master, met those blank, glazed eyes, "Oh, Danna-sama, what a mess you've made."

Removing the remaining glove on his left hand, Claude paused to admire the boy's entrance, gaping wide and sloppily oozing with come, and inserted four fingers easily. He removed his hand with a wet noise and held up his dripping hand to Alois' face, wiped it against the mess already on the boy's mouth. He ran his fingers down Alois' chest, tickling past his spent cock, and pushed his entire hand back in. The demon watched his boy with a certain amount of satisfaction, amused himself by fingering Alois' prostate again and again. He felt the boy clench involuntarily around him each time he did it.

But it still didn't mean that Alois hadn't lost the edge of temper that the boy had started out with. After all, it was Claude's fault that he was currently 'a mess.'

The blonde boy smiled up at Claude, the expression perfectly angelic as the demon fisted him.

And then Alois kicked Claude in the face.

The demon let out a small sigh and retrieved his glasses where it had fallen. It was only slightly bent when he pushed it back up his nose.

Carefully, he took the offending foot by the ankle, brushed away remnant cobwebs still clinging to it, and nuzzled the bottom of it. Slowly, tenderly, he pressed kisses to each toe and licked up the tendons to suck lightly on the boy's ankle.

"But Danna-sama," Claude murmured against the boy's knee, "it was you who agreed to help."

"And you didn't tell me what it entailed," Alois snapped back, trying to tug his leg out of Claude's hold, though his arms were still bound by the demon's spidersilk. "Did you enjoy watching other pieces of shit fuck me in the way that only you were previously allowed?"

Alois' smile was sharp and glittering like broken glass, and just as dangerous to the demon.

"Take me back to the hotel, Claude."

The demon's eyes flashed, the shadows in the room lengthening in response.

"_I did,_" Claude's voice was heavy with darkness and half-feral. He leaned over the boy, pressed against that filthy, sticky body, "I enjoyed watching them violate you, listening to the little wanton noises your mouth made," the demon pressed his hand back into Alois' body, demonstrated the lewd, wet sounds, fucked the boy with his fist until come frothed out of his hole.

The demon's red eyes pinned Alois down. There was an edge of mockery to his voice as "Claude"s form flickered in and out, darkness seeping from the edges of his human guise, "_Why else do you think I did it?_"

Alois' breath stuttered out when Claude settled his weight upon the boy's body, the unrelenting and demanding presence of the demon's touch sliding into him.

But Claude had admitted that he had enjoyed watching the priests fuck Alois, and so here was something that he could deny his demon. It was a way to gain back some semblance of control.

"Take me back to the hotel," the boy ordered, the steel ringing of an order slipping into his voice. "Thompson, Timber, and Canterbury will attend me there."

For one brief moment, the demon considered simply saying "no." He would have had to discard his human guise then, although it would be easy enough to force the boy's battered body to submit to him. And after he was done using the boy, he would have to dispose of him, as well. To devour that strange soul shelled in that angelic, soiled body. The demon wouldn't have been able to properly savor the soul's flavor, but he did not regret, had never regretted such a small thing. Souls were easy enough to come by and one slightly inferior meal wasn't too much to complain about.

Yet, for one moment, the demon found himself hesitating.

No, the demon finally decided. Now was not yet the time. He was, after all, a creature of instinct - and his instincts seemed to prefer this strange, contradictory boy alive.

"Of course, Danna-sama," Claude's face smoothed back into a porcelain mask as he picked up his master. With a thought, he unraveled the ties around Alois' arms, and carried him into the darkness. After a few moments, he deposited the boy on the hotel room bed.

"Will that be all?"

"That is all. Leave now, Claude," Alois ordered as the demon triplets stepped into the hotel bedroom. He ignored his butler then, giving Thompson, Timber, and Canterbury a slow, sensually welcoming smile.

Timber gently scooped Alois up so that the young lord might be carried to the bathroom so that he might bathe, and the blonde boy dipped his head to steal a kiss: tongue parting unresisting lips to deepen it, strokes exploring the warm, wet recesses of the demon's mouth.

It was a long moment later that Alois finally pulled away, chuckling softly and licking his lips-and then just repeated the kiss with Thompson and Canterbury both, fingers digging into their dark hair to draw them closer as Timber still easily carried him.

Alois knew that he was playing with fire, _knew_ that he was playing a game upon a razor's edge by taunting Claude in such a way. But it was a way to regain his control-a small revenge for the situation that the demon had placed him in the first place.

So Alois denied Claude what he wanted and offered it up freely to the triplets-and made sure Claude watched.

Only the slight narrowing of his eyes gave away the demon's irritation. Claude's face was a mask of cold porcelain as he gave a bow and stepped out of the room. He closed the door with a soft click behind him, even as he heard the muffled sound of a soft moan.

Instead, he walked evenly out of the drawing room, ignored Hannah who paused in midst of her dusting to curtsy, out of the master suite and onto the streets. The demon walked slowly, a plausible imitation of a human's sauntering pace, although anyone truly watching would have noticed his movements were too mechanical and precise to show humanity.

He had come so close to killing his little master - Claude still had half a mind to turn back and do so. It would be impractical, however, to kill the main player in this performance he had carefully planned for Sebastian Michaelis and his human master.

It was only the triplets, after all, Claude reasoned. The three demons were an empty shell, completely in his control as any of his human minions were. If the demon closed his eyes, he could project himself, see out of any of the triplets' eyes.

He didn't. The thought of seeing Alois brought on another twinge of annoyance.

"Signore?" a small hand grasped the hem of his coat. The demon paused, met eyes that were too brown to pretend to be blue. Still, Claude ran his thumb against the boy's lower lip, pressed it inside the prostitute's willing mouth.

Hours later, the boy was a ruin under Claude. _Again,_ the demon ordered and the body around him jerked and orgasmed, splattering across dirty cobblestones already wet with come and blood. Hours ago, the boy had screamed himself hoarse, then begged in dry whispers - now, he was barely responding. Though Claude pushed further in, split him apart at the seams, pain-glazed eyes did not blink.

It was inevitable with humans. The demon pulled himself out, and as an afterthought, devoured the boy's soul. It wasn't much of a meal, Claude thought as he tucked himself back in and threw his ruined jacket over the corpse, but at least it had been a passable distraction.

When Claude finally returned to the hotel room, he would have found the triplets tucked into bed with Alois: Timber sprawled out on his back with the blonde's head resting upon his chest, Canterbury spooning against Claude's young master, and Thompson napping with his cheek pressed possessively to Alois' hip, a hand curled over a bruised and milky pale thigh.

Alois was obviously exhausted: covered in bruises that would take time to fade, skin around his mouth dark with the force of the human men's brutal fucking. Dark circles, too, settled beneath the boy's lashes-it was clear, so very much so, that he was worn out.

The blonde stirred slightly, burrowing closer to the warm, safe-in relative terms-bodies around him.

Caught in the webs of his dreams, Alois wasn't even aware as he began to cry: silently and with no hiccuping sounds that most children made when they cried; the only evidence to the fact that he _was_ crying were his tears, glistening tracks of salt water that slid over his cheeks from beneath the velvet dark half-circle of Alois' lashes.

Each of the demons opened their eyes as one when Claude walked into the room. Three pairs of eyes followed him as he stepped around the bed. With a small gesture of Claude's hand, the triplets slowly pulled away from the boy, careful not to jostle him. Ever diligent, they picked up their clothes from the floor before their lithe bodies moved past their demon master. The door closed with a soft click behind him.

The silence that descended over the room was deafening. Leaning over the boy, the demon took in the sight of his master, his boy. A small furrow appeared between his brows - the boy probably wouldn't last much more of this treatment.

Still, bruised and battered, Alois Trancy was hauntingly beautiful. The demon pulled off his gloves, slipped his fingers through damp silken hair, brushed the back of his knuckles against tear-wet cheeks. He brought his hand to his own lips. The boy's tears tasted salty-sweet like blood.

Ever tuned to the feeling of Claude's touch, Alois' lashes fluttered for a moment before lifting upwards. He pinned Claude with his blue gaze, though that gaze was still misty and hazy with the remnants of sleep.

Careful of his injuries, Alois eased up onto his knees and moved closer to Claude: arms reaching up to twine about the demon's neck, the fourteen year-old sighed softly and tucked his face into the bend of Claude's throat, nuzzling sleepily closer.

"Stay with me," came the exhausted order, and Alois tightened his hold around his butler's neck to burrow closer still to the other man's familiar warmth and scent.

The demon paused and then slowly capitulated, wrapping an arm around Alois' waist. He lowered the boy onto the bed, had no choice but to lay down next to him. Idly, he stroked a hand down skinny arms, pulled blankets up and around his master's naked body.

"Yes, Your Highness," he said, his breath stirring the boy's soap-sweet hair.

Alois sighed quietly, lashes falling once more over his sapphire-blue eyes as he tucked himself against Claude's solid presence. He lazily draped himself over the demon, no fear in any of his gestures though he knew that Claude could easily kill him—before, now, at any point on the future.

But Alois just couldn't make himself care, because death was just a return to the darkness that had seeped into his life.

"From this point on, I only want you in my bed and body," came the murmured order, still slurred with sleep—though the hand that dug into Claude's hair was anything if not completely aware of that telling order.

"Yes, Your Highness," the demon repeated.

His left hand burned with the words, a reminder of the contract. It was really only a minor inconvenience-something easily broken. Yet, it was... interesting. Now that Claude had worked off his initial-annoyance? irritation?-he could readily admit that Alois Trancy was an interesting human.

Claude placed a hand against the back of his master's neck, slowly massaged the kinks between the boy's aching shoulder blades.

He would go back, at least for a while, to being the butler-tender and accommodating and perfect.

It was a lie, however, and Alois was fully aware of the fact that it _was_ a lie.

But he couldn't stop himself from closing his eyes, couldn't stop himself from slowly relaxing against the demon and beneath his touch, couldn't stop himself from finally dropping back into sleep.

This time, Alois slept dreamlessly.

The demon felt Alois' breathing even, deepen before he stopped his soothing ministrations. Reaching up, he traced the curve of the boy's heart-shaped face, cupped the boy's cheek in his hands.

"I want to greedily devour you to the end, my master," he murmured as he pressed his lips against Alois Trancy's forehead. It was as much a promise as poison, and therefore perfect.

* * *

It was just another stereotypical day in the office—

And Will knew that to be a _lie_.

He could feel a certain shinigami's gaze upon his back as he stepped into the boss' office, could feel that same gaze upon his chest and face when the orderly worker stepped out of that office more than an hour later, this time carrying a stack of folders beneath one suit-covered arm.

He knew that he was being hunted.

…or that he was being paranoid.

(Though the shinigami had his money down on the first choice, just because he knew that the owner of that particular pair of eyes was just waiting for the chance to pounce and try to re-enact the scene that had happened nearly a month ago and would—if Will had his way—NEVER. EVER. happen again.)

Wishing that he had eyes in the back of his head, William T. Spears eased into his cubicle's chair and neatly flipped open the newest set of cases so that he could peruse them and see just how many similarities there were to the situation with the Christian priests. Considering the fact that these deaths happened in Rome and the deaths of Catholic priests had nearly tripled in the almost-month since the last incident… Will knew that he'd be sent out soon to investigate further.

Hopefully with a new partner.

Grell Sutcliff adjusted the angle of his telescope, artfully grafted into his cubicle wall. He zoomed in on Will's strong hands - sensually turning pages, Will's long legs - half crossed and partially visible under his desk, Will's eyes - sharp and sadistic, cutting through the case file. _Ahhhhhhhhnnn, _it was almost too much to bear!

"Sutcliff-sempai," Ronald, the adorable little dear, made a concerned face as he leaned over the cubicle wall, "You okay?"

"Au contraire, mon ami~" Grell knew his French accent was horrible and didn't care, "I'm so very sick, Ronald! So very _love sick~"_

With that declaration, Grell spun in a full circle, his office chair squeaking in exuberance.

Knowing that the idiot was just gearing up for today, Will's death scythe suddenly cleaved through the air, burying itself in Grell's cubicle's wall. The scythe itself had been less than half of an inch away from the redhead's horribly annoying face.

"Quit encouraging the subordinates in your bad habits and go back to work," came Will's voice, unyielding as iron.

Retracting his scythe, Grell's superior once more returned to the case files, brows furrowing slightly when he noticed something different about these deaths. Usually, the soul was taken the moment that a mortal—or demon, though Sebastian Michaelis was bastardly enough not to comply—encountered a shinigami's death scythe.

Most of the corpses had the empty, staring eyes that occurred when a soul had been taken from the body long before death finally happened.

"…hn."

The hole that William made in the gray cubicle wall was quickly filled by a wide green eye, quivering with adoration.

"Willums acknowledged me~" Grell's hands gave a little flutter to match his heart, "It's true love after all~"

The red-haired shinigami flounced over to his superior's desk and wrapped his arms around the man's delicious, unyielding shoulders. As he leaned over, Grell caught sight of the papers in the other man's hands.

"Huh? Oh - I got that case file assigned to me too the other day." Grell's grin was Chesire Cat-smug, "Looks like whoever we're playing with's a lot meaner than Sebaschan."

"A demon, regardless of how it acts, is still nothing more than a parasite," Will answered and shrugged, hoping that Grell would release his hold on his shoulders—though, truth be told, the dark-haired shinigami didn't bother trying too hard to get Grell to release him. Who knew? There was a danger that the annoyance would try to sit in his lap next.

"However," Will continued, pushing up his glasses and leaning forward to look at the pictures more closely. "It appears that there are two other culprits aside from the demon. These men here—their souls weren't taken from them until they had been dead for several minutes. And, here… The bodies were dead but the souls still resided in them when the clean-up crew finally arrived."

It seemed as if humans were once more dabbling in dark, dark arts.

"How cree~py," the shinigami answered as Grell leaned further over his superior's shoulder, wine red hair spilling over black suit fabric. He reached over and turned a page, his pinky elegantly raised. "Whatever else we're dancing with must be pretty powerful if our department didn't even know these souls were due. Honestly, we usually get days of warning before a cinematic record collection!"

It was definitely humans then - most demons wouldn't let a perfectly good soul just fester in a rotting corpse. As always, Grell was always happily surprised by how human cruelty could sometimes surpass their demonic counterpart's.

"Still, it looks like we were able to obtain the cinematic records from them. The clean-up crew probably had to _dig _for those things, though, the poor dears~" Grell found himself nuzzling the sharp line of Will's jaw, breathing in clean aftershave.

But alas! As much as Grell wanted to continue, General Supervisor Lancaster had been throwing him very obvious hints that he wanted a "private talk" with Grell. Also, the groping near the coffee maker hadn't helped. If only Lancaster had been Willums, then Grell would have cheerfully complied. But Grell had such an unfortunate dislike of ugly, fat men. _Sigh,_ the story of his life! At least he knew that he could get corporate favors, but types like Lancaster tended to be horribly possessive. Well, at least it wouldn't be the first time Grell laid back and thought of London (Or Will. Or Sebaschan.).

Grell straightened and arched his back in a catlike stretch, "We should get down to the library and take a look at those records - it'd be nice if they could give us a clue about this entire mess."

One thing that Will could take comfort in was the fact that Grell hadn't attempted to stick his tongue down the supervisor's throat-or something much bigger down his _own_ throat. The memory of what happened before during their last case out and the current nuzzle that the sexually harassing shinigami was giving him was enough to make the usually stoic Will clear his throat-crossing his legs and allowing the folders to settle over his lap.

"Going down to the library sounds like an excellent start. Perhaps we'll find cases from the past where similar circumstances had been dealt with. Head down now and I'll join you shortly."

Calm, cool, collected: William T. Spears was as unaffected by things, as always.

..._of course_.

"Ehhh~?" Grell turned crestfallen, giant eyes toward the other man. Just for effect, he let his eyes brim with tears - a crying scene in 2 seconds flat! Grell mentally patted himself on the back - such was his amazing acting talent!

"But Willums~" the red-headed shinigami latched onto William's arm, locking his fingers together, "I don't wanna go there alone!"

"Mr. Sutcliff, go down to the library now," Will ordered, putting the ring of iron in his voice-using The Tone that usually had Grell falling all over himself to obey. "I'll be joining you shortly."

Because like hell Will was going to admit that the redheaded menace had _any_ effect on him!

If Grell knew Will's inner thoughts, he would have perked up instead: while "redheaded menace" sounded a bit juvenile, a pet name was a pet name! Ohh, Grell would have rejoiced! They were in looooove~

However, in reality, the red-headed menace visibly deflated, drooping down a little. Still, he kept his death grip (DEATH) on Will's arm.

"B-but Willums," he tried again, even as his superior's eyes pinned him, flayed him alive -_ahhhn-_ "I have a stalker and I don't wanna go alone!"

"I highly doubt that," Will answered easily enough, quirking an eyebrow in derision at the leech that currently was refusing to let go of him.

The dark haired shinigami shifted then, and perhaps Grell might have recognized the reason for that slight movement: an uncomfortable problem between his legs.

"Well, it's actually true this time~" Grell paused, unsure of whether he should name names. Will was so dedicated to his job that he might just flip his lid if he found out his high superior was groping his subordinate during breaks.

"And besides, I've no idea where my files have gone so I'll need yours-"

At this, Grell scooped up the folders off Will's lap to- _oh my! Oh my my my~~!_ The shinigami made a small noise of delight - how wonderful and unexpected! He unlatched his hands from Will's arm, ran a ticklish finger over the bulge tenting his superior's neatly pleated pants.

In a quick motion, Grell knelt and crawled down under the other man's desk. It was cramped but he had just enough room to run his hands up Will's thighs and open his zipper, "But maybe I should troubleshoot this problem first," he murmured, nuzzling against white cotton briefs.

The 'no' was on the tip of Will's tongue-before Grell's second nuzzle was enough to steal his breath away. The usually so typically composed shinigami tilted his head back and closed his eyes, a soft sound slipping part his lips to escape into audible noise.

How was it that after decades, centuries of control, this insatiable menace was able to make him hard with an image, with an affectionate nuzzle against Will's jaw?

It made no sense-

And he tried to tell himself that was why his fingers dug into Grell's hair, holding him still with a harsh grip... and then kissed him hard.

Grell made a muffled noise of surprise against Will's mouth. It took him exactly half a second to get over his shock and start to kiss back enthusiastically. The shinigami slipped his tongue into the other, slid against the slick heat of Will's tongue and coaxed it into his own mouth.

His hands were as busy as his mouth, loosening the buttons under Will's tie and slipping eager fingers to explore warm skin. Grell gave a muffled moan as his hands trailed lower, untucking his superior's shirt and edged along the elastic of Will's briefs.

The hard edge of the desk was pressing uncomfortably against Grell's shoulder blades. He regretfully broke apart from Will's lips, shifted lower until he was on his knees, and worshiped the other man's chest and abdomen with his tongue.

That wasn't what Will wanted at all.

His power pulsed briefly, sealing off his cubicle so that no one could disturb him-usually done when overtime kicked in and Will's anti-social tendencies reared their ugly head. Not even his direct superiors had been able to break his privacy ward.

The sharp-eyed shinigami growled as Grell's tongue flicked against a nipple: so much arousal, so much sensation-and he was feeling it because this redheaded annoyance wanted to stir up Will's previously non-existent libido. How easily Grell had done it was completely infuriating.

Will shifted out of his chair, moving to the ground and pinning Grell's slighter frame beneath his own, fingers scraping against the redhead's scalp to once more steal a deep, demanding kiss.

It was just a moment's work to part Grell's thighs with a knee, moving against the space that he had forcibly made for himself.

Stupid, stupid menace.

Grell gave a small surprised noise as he was effectively pinned down. The noise became a satisfied purr as Will settled himself between his legs. Grell hooked his ankles around the other man's back, arched up and very deliberately ground their erections together.

Thank goodness for Willum's forethought with the ward, Grell thought as he opened his mouth to his superior's demands. Although a more sinister part of Grell wanted to show this as a display, he hadn't even thought Will would give in, much less go this far _in the office! _Oh what a happy day was today!

Not that Will was paying attention to the thoughts that Grell currently had running through his head. Instead, Will growled darkly and rocked roughly against the other shinigami: catching Grell's hands to keep them above the redhead's head, undoing the closure to Grell's pants to take his cock in hand.

He stroked and stroked again, echoing the movements of his hand with the thrust of his tongue, gliding sensually against the other's.

Unrelenting, body moving over Grell's-hoping that this would be enough to stop his unwanted interest in the menace.

Unfortunately for Will, stopping was possibly the furthest thing Grell had in mind.

"Nnnngh..." the red-haired shinigami thrust up into Will's hand, his surprise that his superior was taking such initiative fueling his lust. The dull, gray, utilitarian carpet scratched his back every time he moved, the florescent lighting that never complimented his makeup illuminated the light sheen of sweat on Will's skin - somehow, everything he hated about office cubicles became erotic with Will stroking him _there _and _harder._

It was embarrassing how close he was getting. Grell finally forced his lips apart from the other man's, gasping with the effort.

"Mmnn... Will," he panted, bit his lip to keep from coming on the spot, "N-not yet... I want - want you inside me."

And Will? Will just laughed, easing down Grell's body to head towards the blood-flushed cock that twitched against his palm from his attentions. "Maybe if you increase your case solving ratio, then I'll give you what you want."

Which also hinted at the fact that Will might—might—be willing to do this more often in the future, but that hadn't yet occurred to the shinigami because he had other things to concentrate on: such as the fact that Grell was still coherent and wasn't yet coming.

True, the superior didn't have much experience in regards to this, but Will also figured that it wouldn't take much to get Grell off.

Lightly, he flicked his tongue over the slit at the head of the redhead's cock.

"Mmff! I will!" Grell bit down on his knuckle, his entire body trembling with effort as he tried so so hard not to thrust up into Will's face "Anything! I'll do anything! Just- _please!_"

"Perfect solve ratio, perfect work attendance, perfect behavior in the workplace," Will answered in reply before finally dipping his head lower to seal his mouth around Grell's cock, sucking roughly with the knowledge that the redheaded shinigami was incredibly close to his orgasm already.

Grell's only answer was a low, broken moan as he came hard into Will's mouth. He laid there panting afterwards, eyes glazed - then he remembered the _last time_ he hadn't moved fast enough.

Forcing heavy limbs to react, Grell pulled out an inconspicuous tube from his pocket before shrugging off his wrinkled coat. The shinigami turned over, got on his elbows and knees before pulling his pants completely down. He squeezed a large dollop of lube onto his fingers, and slicked himself with it, biting back a groan as he shoved his own fingers deeper and scissored his entrance.

"I... I promise Will, so..." Grell licked swollen, flushed lips and gave his superior a half-lidded, wanton gaze over his shoulder.

"So…?" Will asked in answer, eyebrow quirking once more at the look that Grell was giving to him. It was about that time that the redheaded menace might have remembered that his superior wasn't as… experienced… as Grell himself was.

Though Will was a quick learner and did a pretty decent job of picking up on subtext, especially since he trailed his fingers teasingly over the newly bared skin of Grell's back, digging his fingernails into the curve of the shinigami's ass.

The fingernails dug deeper as Will also began to consider just how often Grell did this with others given the fact that the annoyance _did_, in fact, carry around a tube of lubricant. And that consideration, that thought, was a distasteful one: being one of many.

"So..." Grell pushed a third finger into himself, flushed as he lewdly thrust into himself. Will's nails stung just enough for Grell not to lose himself in the demonstration. He pulled his hand out, wrapped slick fingers around his own cock and stroked his oversensitive cock until he was hard again.

"So," the shinigami shifted, red hair spilling down his back like wine, opened his knees more, exposed himself needily, "fuck me, Will."

But the thought of being one amongst many still lingered with Will, and the dark-haired shinigami finally pulled his hand away from Grell's pale skin.

"Why me? Why not someone else? You have enough admirers," he logically pointed out, glancing away from the lust-driven body so that Will wouldn't lose himself in desire.

"Nn... no," the shinigami got up on his elbows, "I want you - not anyone else."

Grell was honestly puzzled: Didn't the other realize that Will was his fairy tale prince? Yes, there were others, but Will was by far the most desirable of them all! (The only competition Grell could think of was Sebaschan, but while Sebaschan was amazing, fantastic eye candy, even Grell could tell that the demon was quite a pedophile for his bocchan.)

"Am I," Grell bit his lip, trying to quell a rising fear and familiar insanity boiling in him, "Am I not good enough?" Because he wasn't a woman? Because Will would probably date a woman - that if a normal, beautiful woman spread out in front of Will, the other man wouldn't have hesitated?

In answer to that, Will reached out and twined his fingers through Grell's long hair, coaxing the shinigami close as he caught the other's mouth in a slow, hungry, exceptionally _thorough_ kiss: tongue sliding, stroking against Grell's, exploring the wet heat and recesses of the other man's mouth.

When he finally pulled out of the kiss, Will looked at Grell, eyes incredibly sharp, burning bright with intensity. "Since you have awoken these… interests… in me, I find myself to be rather on the possessive side. If I find you with anyone else, you _won't_ live to regret it."

And then he repined the redhead, catching Grell's mouth once more in another demanding, hard kiss.

Possessive? Grell groaned into the kiss, returning Will's demands with his tongue, his lips, his teeth. He ran his clean hand down the other man's neck, pressed them closer together.

No one was ever possessive with him - had cared enough to demand his complete obedience. Small shards of memories flashed behind his closed eyelids, ripped lace and the dizzying scent of scotch. Grell didn't try to remember - he knew better not to.

"Just you," he whispered desperately, unable to stop the small pricks of real tears in his eyes, the roil of darkness within his chest, "Just you, Will."

Touch almost gentle, Will took off Grell's glasses, dipping his head to lick the other's tears clean. The dark-haired shinigami's breath fanned lightly over the other's cheek, his throat, and it was with a smooth press of his mouth against Grell's that Will finally caved and gave the other shinigami what Grell had pleaded for: his hips moved forward, cock rubbing against the redhead's slick entrance, pulled away and again pushed forward—this time to push and thrust and move deeper, burying himself completely as his tongue dipped into Grell's welcoming mouth to mirror the movements of their bodies lower.

Grell had somehow found the key to unlock Will's interest—the superior didn't know how the other had gone about doing so since he had dealt with plenty of annoying people through the years. But Grell had somehow done _something_ different and Will couldn't help himself in his watching of the other.

"_Ahhhh_," the shinigami's hands scrabbled for purchase on the carpet as Will filled him to the brim. It was good, so good, as Grell pushed his hips back and clenched hard around the other man, meeting and deepening each thrust that Will gave him.

The pace was too slow, too tender - Grell was slowly becoming undone by gentleness he'd never experienced before. He panted shallowly against Will's mouth, gave him an apologetic nip on his lower lip.

"I... I can't-" he clenched again, harder, desperately, "harder!"

"No," Will said with a cat-got-the-canary smile, leaning in closer to lightly nip in return—only fair since Grell was the first one who started it. "I think that, for this first time, I'll kill you with kindness."

The sharp-eyed collector chuckled softly, letting his head lower idly to press a kiss against the bend of Grell's throat: tongue darting out to playfully flick against the quick beating of the shinigami's pulse point. Another, slower, lick almost directly afterwards came, this time so that Will could lick away the sweat that misted the redhead's skin.

Hands gentle though still firm and unyielding, Will caught Grell's wrists once more to pin them above the other shinigami's head, thumb rubbing idly against the sensitive skin of Grell's inner wrists as he continued to thrust slow and deep into the svelte, clenching body beneath his own.

Seeing how thoroughly Grell succumbed…

It filled Will with smug masculine satisfaction.

Grell gave a low moan, biting his lip until it bled - anything to give his sensations a bit of edge, of pain, "N-no, Will... please, I'm begging you, don't-"

He couldn't, struggled against Will's iron grip on his wrists, "I've never- I can't-" the shinigami shook his head, red hair spilling out along his shaking body. It was too much - too much gentleness and things he'd always wanted but never had. He always made do, eventually learned to love rough and hard and painful. If he got used to soft and tender and loving, he would hurt himself more if it ever were torn away.

When Grell had drawn blood, Will's fingers eased over the other shinigami's mouth: coaxing the sharp teeth away before once more catching Grell's mouth with his own.

The sweetness was unrelenting, tongue gliding and stroking sensually against the redhead's.

Never stopped the movement of his hips, never stopped burying himself deep, completely. But he never made it rough.

Grell panted against Will's mouth, unable to do anything but take the onslaught. He kissed him until he didn't know up from down, left from right - drowned in those soft lips and the insistent rhythm of the man on top of him.

"W-why?" he managed to whisper, stutter against Will's jaw, Will's neck, Will's shoulder. His lost green eyes ran searchingly over his superior's face until he found the other man's gaze.

Will laughed softly, nipping lightly at the full curve of Grell's mouth before gently shifting so that he might be able to push against the shinigami's prostate as he rocked closer, deeper—wanting this to be enjoyed by the both of them.

"Because you can be rather frustrating to deal with much of the time, but I've discovered that I still wouldn't want to change anything about you," Will answered primly enough, quirking an eyebrow at the disheveled redhead beneath him.

It was a realization that Will had come to not that long ago, and a realization that he had brooded upon, dwelled upon, tried to find the logic in it—and realized that there was none and never would be any, and thus he just had to accept it at face value.

Grell started - it was a lie, had to be. He didn't understand how Will could not want to change anything about him. Even Grell could see so many visible flaws in himself, and he was supposed to be a narcissist!

Another of Will's controlled, perfect thrusts rocked into him, tearing him between pure, unadulterated pleasure and trying to form a coherent thought. It wasn't surprising when the first won out.

"Will, Will, Will-" it was a mantra on his lips, a ward against the insanity pushing against his eyes, "let me- let my hands g -ahhnn- p-please..."

Finally, finally—Will released Grell's hands so that the other could scrabble against him. Lightly, his tongue flicked against the pulse of the redhead's throat, biting very gently to bruise the skin as his hips continued to rock their bodies against one another's.

His hands slid over Grell's body, dipping beneath the other's shirt and clothes to caress warm, sweaty skin. A press of a kiss and thrust deeper still, finally managing to hit Grell's prostate—wanting to see him succumb to pleasure: completely, utterly, with no chance to clutch at anything other than Will.

And clutch Grell did, his perfectly manicured nails finding purchase against the rough texture of Will's suit jacket. A loud groan ripped through him as his superior - his lover?- brushed against him _there_ and did it again and again. It figured that Will was perfectionist at this, too. The redhaired shinigami rocked up into Will's movements, faster, feeling the beginning of orgasm as Will unerringly thrust deeper into him.

Grell clawed his way frantically up Will's back until he held the other man's face in his hands, kissed him roughly and desperately as he came, his entire body tightening and shuddering in Will's arms.

Will moaned quietly into the kiss, a fine tremble rocking through his body as Grell clung to him: it was the desperation of the kiss and the tightness of Grell's arms around him and his body clenching over and over again that brought Will to the edge of his own rough orgasm.

His body pressed possessively over Grell's, disheveled and obviously indulging in things that he had never expected to actually indulge in: lovemaking because fucking was too vulgar a word to describe the way that Grell clung to him, kissed him, arched beneath him and looked so vulnerably into Will's own slanted eyes.

It was that look in the other shinigami's eyes that gave the kiss something else that hadn't been there before: claiming.

Their kiss lasted well past the moment they spent themselves, metamorphosing into lazy, soft brushes of lips, more chaste and heartbreaking than anything Grell had tasted before. Idly, he ran a hand through Will's disheveled hair, freeing thick, dark bangs from their original style, loved the way that they softened the harsh lines around his superior's face.

For once, Grell found himself at a loss of words. He certainly hadn't expected _this_ in on the floor of Will's cubicle, under harsh fluorescent lights. Sure, he had started with the intention for doing something quick and dirty - giving Will a secret blowjob under his desk - but this? Grell wasn't sure what this soft aching in his chest meant, if he should ignore it completely.

Instead, he cupped a gentle hand against Will's cheek, and basked in the afterglow.

He wasn't the only one doing so.

Will sighed softly, setting aside his glasses for a moment so that he could let his head drop, resting it against the bend of Grell's throat while the redhead began to run his fingers through Will's dark hair.

His eyes closed, relaxing over Grell's body—sated and content and feeling lazier than he had in decades. For the first time since he had become a shinigami, Will wasn't thinking about the next case that he'd have to take, the steps to solving various mysteries that he knew he'd need to be focusing on soon, the stress of dedicating his life completely to work and nothing else. This was something different, nicer… and thus, Will set aside his usual thoughts to linger in this moment.

The sharper shinigami shifted closer, arm slipping around Grell's waist to keep him against the length of Will's body. He was comfortable and had no intention of moving for at least a while longer.

In an uncharacteristic move, Will pressed an affectionate kiss to the pulse point of Grell's throat.

Grell made a soft, happy noise in reply, snuggling up against the other man with a contented sigh. He continued carding his fingers through Will's hair, nuzzled at it where he could.

"I..." he started, only to realize he didn't know what he was going to say. Grell felt out of sorts, an actress who didn't know the lines and had never played this particular role before well enough to ad lib.

His insecurities came bubbling to the forefront instead: "If you want anyone else, th-that's fine - just, please don't leave me."

Will's reply was simple:

"Don't be more foolish than you can help."

With that simple statement, he moved slowly over Grell's body, catching the redhead's mouth in a possessive kiss, letting the heat of his anger at the other shinigami's statement show through.

Grell buried his hands in Will's dark hair, poured what little soul he had left into that kiss. It was a desperate gamble, one that he hadn't taken in so long, he couldn't even remember why - _don'trememberdon'tremember_ - other than a vague sense of terror.

He buried his head in the crook of his... lover's... shoulder, shivered before he left the next words slip out, whisper soft: "Does that mean you can be mine?"

Will snorted softly in derision at that, though it was a quiet sound and didn't have any harsh overtones to it. Lightly, he nuzzled against Grell's temple and shifted closer still, arm remaining snugly secure around the redhead's waist.

"It would be rather hypocritical of me to be possessive of you and not let you return the favor. Correct?" –which was Will's round-about way of saying 'yes.'

His arm tightened briefly and Will shifted closer so that he could press an open-mouthed kiss to the bruise that he had left upon Grell's throat, scraping his teeth gently before flicking his tongue to lap away the sting.

The shinigami found himself nodding, unable to make another sound as pressed against Will. It felt surreal, and once again, Grell found himself at a loss. What happens after a 'happily ever after,' anyway? Grell never once considered he'd make it somehow to the finish line. There always seemed to be more dragons to slay, more evil stepmothers to thwart, more ogres to defeat.

He gave a small, contented sigh, and instead hoped that Will would drowsily forget about work for a while longer.

Just this once-and truly just this once-Will was willing to put work aside for just a bit longer. There was always overtime to be done (because overtime never ended), and he was comfortable right now.

Even workaholics were able to take a break every so often, right?

Shifting over Grell's languid body, Will just took another slow, idle kiss for himself.

He was, surprisingly, happy.

~TBC~


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

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* * *

**

Ciel Phantomhive stepped into their private compartment just as the train rumbled into motion beneath his feet. It had been more of an adventure getting here than he thought. The trio (of idiots) had somehow caught wind that he was leaving and decided to throw him a farewell party that morning. Breakfast had been a charred broken mess, the great hall had paint splatters everywhere, and the garden... _the garden... _Ciel put a hand to his temple.  
_  
_Needless to say, it had been a mess. It was fortunate that he actually did have a demon of a butler - no human could have fixed all that in the span of 30 minutes: exactly the time it took their coach to arrive.

Ciel took a seat near the window, felt the familiar weight of his pistol push up against his skinny waist. He took a breath and decided to focus on the case instead. Anything to get the sight of the garden... _the garden_... out of his mind.

It went without saying, as well, that even Sebastian had been impressed with the amount of damage that Finny had managed to wreak upon the Phantomhive estate's poor, unsuspecting flowers. When he had looked out the window after the gardener finished his happy chattering, even the demon hadn't been able to hide a well-bred wince.

But things _had_ managed to be salvageable, and the butler could only hope that his employees wouldn't pull the mansion down about their ears while he and the lordling were conducting business on the Continent.

As Ciel made himself comfortable, Sebastian stowed their carry-on luggage up in the overhead compartments, keeping his tea service out for later.

A few hours and an entire pot of English Breakfast later, Ciel looked up from his reading - a bland text about the history of alchemy. Though it was nowhere near dinnertime, he was rather hungry - his morning meal had been entirely inedible and he had dismissed Sebastian's suggestion to stop for lunch while on the carriage in favor for time.

He looked around the compartment and found his demon sitting on the opposite side from him, his eyes neutrally lowered. It was an odd sight to see that mask of face so still - usually Sebastian was so perfect at his farce of pretending to be human. However, no human would sit so, or at least without trying to stare out the window.

Then, the demon's eyes met Ciel's. Sebastian's face animated into life with that knowing smirk. Ciel found himself unconsciously breathing a soft sigh of relief.

"Do demons sleep at all?" he found himself asking, and then immediately regretted it.

"In our human guises, we can sleep if we wish to rest," the demon answered, silent for a moment more before shrugging idly. "But it's not necessary."

For Sebastian, he hadn't slept in weeks, not since the newest threat had appeared and Sebastian returned to a razor sharp readiness to keep his bocchan safe.

Idly, the demon reached out and trailed fingertips lightly over the edge of the boy's jawline.

"Why the sudden interest, bocchan?"

The earl turned his head toward the window, pulling away from Sebastian's touch.

"Well, you can sleep if you want," a small furrow appeared between his brows as he focused on the passing scenery, tried to ignore the small embarrassed flush on his cheeks, "Unless you're creepy and sleep with your eyes open or something."

"How sweet of you, bocchan, to be so concerned over me," the demon murmured with a slow, wicked smile. He chuckled, a muted sound, and started to prepare Ciel's afternoon snack-knowing that the teen wouldn't last until dinner.

Soon, the butler presented his master with a cup of Darjleeng tea and rum cake.

...unaware that Bard had tried to "help" with its preparations while the annoyed demon was fixing the garden.

Ciel gave a small "hmph" and stabbed his butler with a glare. It wasn't exactly that he was concerned, but, it was... disconcerting. The earl never had any illusions that Sebastian was anything but a demon. But there were moments when he was too convincing as a human and Ciel found himself floundering. Just what were the extents of the human guise "Sebastian"? Where there any overlaps between the butler and the demon or did one just seamlessly flow into the other?

Ciel knew never to voice these questions. The phrase "curious as a kitten" was dangerous around Sebastian.

Instead he took a sip of tea and a bite of cake. And blinked. The cake had a surprising amount of heat to it, warming Ciel as it melted sweetly against his tongue and slid down his throat as he swallowed.

It was... good.

He took another bite. And another. Felt his face flush. It was very good.

It had been a long time since Ciel had immediately dug into the sweets that the demon had prepared-sometimes Sebastian wondered if he was losing his touch.

...but then there would be a time where Ciel seemed to very much like the treats that he prepared. It was rather exasperating not knowing what caught his master's attention and what didn't.

"I'm glad you seem to like the cake," Sebastian commented neutrally.

Little did Sebastian know that his sweets were always delicious, but Ciel forced himself to eat it slowly, trained himself to savor it without expression. He couldn't give his demon too much ammunition, after all. Besides, the first mocking comments Sebastian had given a younger Ciel about eating his cake too quickly had stung. It was unbecoming and childlike - and childishness was the first thing that Ciel strove to flay off. Children were far too powerless.

None of this, however, was currently on Ciel's mind.

The earl finished his last bite, loosened his collar a bit - was it getting hot in here? - and held his plate out.

"Another slice," he ordered, his glare daring his butler to do otherwise.

The only commentary that Sebastian offered up to Ciel's order was to slightly lift an eyebrow. "Of course, my lord," the demon murmured quietly.

He quirked a small smile then and cut another slice of the cake to place upon Ciel's plate. Anticipating what the boy would say next, Sebastian made sure that _this_ slice was much bigger.

Ciel found himself taking another bite, and then another. It was odd how Sebastian's face was fuzzy. Ciel squinted and odd things came into focus: the light shining off Sebastian's hair, his lips, that little bob of adam's apple that peeked up over his collar. Ciel loosened his own collar, pulled off his cravat, and gave his butler another glare for good measure.

Sometimes, he wanted to give Sebastian a piece of his mind! Ciel took another bite of cake, licked sticky sauce off his lips. In fact, now was a wonderful idea to do so! No one else was around, Sebastian couldn't weasel out of it by claiming he had to tend to the house or the idiots - this idea was perfect!

Ciel Phantomhive set down his now-empty plate and walked over to his butler. (It surprised him that it took him so many steps to reach Sebastian - had the compartment always been so big?) But what pissed him off _more_ was the fact that even standing, he was barely taller than Sebastian sitting.

"Sebastian," he glared, his hands on his hips, "I order you to be shorter than me!"

Sebastian blinked, then blinked again as his eyes slightly widened in non-feigned surprise. "Bocchan, you order me to... what?"

Never before had his master acted so irrational; it was almost as if he was-

The demon stilled and glanced down at the cake. Tugging off a glove, Sebastian dipped his fingers into the sauce, licking his skin clean.

The rum cake that _he_ had prepared wouldn't have made Ciel at all intoxicated. The cake hadn't been tampered with, but the sauce... The sauce had been left unattended while he went to deal with the garden.

_Bard_.

The demon butler growled in irritation.

"Well," Ciel raised an unimpressed eyebrow, "I'm waiting."

After an awkward pause, Ciel frowned further and swayed forward, only saved himself by grabbing onto his butler's shoulders, "You're not going to do it, are you? You know why? Because of your stupid demon aesthetics! Imagine if my butler were shorter than me! Then you-you couldn't intimidate me with your smarmy smirk! I hate that smarmy smirk!"

Ciel took a breath - the room was spinning - and took another. His fingers dug into his demon's lapels, wrinkling fine fabric, "You never tell me anything! You're just playing with me and I hate it that I still trust you so much!"

It was... surprisingly... just how much Ciel was giving away just now. The demon had known that they had played games with their words, had always played because he knew that the boy could hold his own. But now... But now.

But now Sebastian was hearing his contractor's inner thoughts.

"I play games because I know that you are equally talented at playing them, my bocchan. I tease and taunt and don't always tell you everything because I know you capable of handling it."

Sebastian shook his head then, scooping Ciel up to settle the boy against his chest. "Never forget that I belong to you, Ciel Phantomhive. I enjoy our contract and I enjoy our small games, but you can still trust me."

The reminder that his master truly was barely more than a child... it was shocking and unsettling both.

And endearing.

"No," Ciel pulled away from his demon, struggling dizzily against his arms, "I... can't trust you. We'll use each other - that's all there is. You'll be my-my gun when I take revenge and in return you take my soul. It's... it's... that's all."

The room was warm and suffocating and Ciel couldn't stop the stream of words flowing from his mouth. He should have been embarrassed but instead, he was just hot. And weary.

But there was no way he could stop - not when he had chosen this path. Knew that he couldn't stop, otherwise the demon that dogged his footsteps might abandon him. Still, there were times when he accidentally slowed down and fear whispered into his ears to look back. Look back and regret.

He never did - won't do so, even now. The boy stopped struggling, slumped slowly against the demon's shoulder. His head felt too-heavy on his thin neck.

"Sebastian," he murmured long lashes fluttering against pale cheeks, brought delicate hands chained with heavy rings to clutch at the front of his butler's vest. "If I ever stop moving, kill me."

"No," the demon said simply, bringing up Ciel's hand to press a kiss to the boy's knuckles.

Ciel pressed his face against Sebastian's chest, listened to his demon's unrelenting heartbeat, "It's an order."

"Why?" the demon murmured, voice soft and muted as he trailed his fingers through his master's hair. Seeing the boy so vulnerable... It was a reminder of just how young Ciel truly was.

Ciel, despite the numbing warm haziness spreading through him, scoffed. It was something he would never say - ever. Even the room was drowsily spinning and his face felt flushed, he acknowledged it.

He was afraid of losing Sebastian. It was ridiculous, because who in their right mind would be terrified that their demon would grow disinterested in him, abandon their contract, and left him live a long, bountiful life without the means to have revenge?

And at that moment, he would cease to be Ciel Phantomhive, would be forced to going to back to "boy," and would be tormented with regret. Compared to that, he would rather have his soul devoured a hundred times.

Ciel gave a harsh bite of a laugh -truly, he must be insane. The crest of Phantomhive on his butler's lapel scratched against his cheek.

"Are you questioning your master?"

"No," the demon answered softly, letting Ciel's hair trail through his fingers strand by strand before pressing a soft kiss to the muted silk. "I only wish to better understand my master and why he would wish to give such an order."

Lashes lowering to veil his gaze, Sebastian gently tilted Ciel's chin upwards so that the young earl could meet his eyes—wanting to see what it was, exactly, that Ciel was thinking that would make him say such things.

Ciel met his demon's eyes without hesitation. His face felt hot and a tiny rational part of his mind told him that he was probably embarrassingly flushed.

Usually, meeting Sebastian's eyes were a battle of wills - it was a physical effort not to drown in those deep reddish-brown eyes. Yet today, they looked... gentler than usual. Then again, the entire compartment was fuzzier. Ciel's logic was flawless.

"I can't -" a pause. Then, slowly, like a dawning realization, Ciel gave his demon a soft, smug smile, "It's a secret."

"Is that so?" Sebastian asked in return, bemused by his bocchan's particular reply. "Then perhaps I can try to coax it from you."

Fingers still gentle, he tilted Ciel's chin upwards a bit higher, dipping his own head to steal a kiss: it was chaste, one might even say sweet—just a light pressing of the demon's lips against the boy's.

Ciel blinked. And blinked again.

The light pressure against his lips wasn't bad - although Ciel was honestly surprised that Sebastian's lips were so soft. And warm. He'd always imagined those lips as sharp and cold as metal. There was no way that Sebastian would coax anyth-

...

Was Sebastian just- did Sebastian-

Ciel blinked. Forced himself to blink again.

Sebastian was kissing him. _Kissing _him. It took a few tries before his brain finally digested this piece of information, but when it did, it took immediate action.

_SLAP! _Ciel's palm rang out against his butler's cheek.

Most of the alcohol's influence was driven out by sheer anger, instead leaving a fuming boy in Sebastian's lap.

And Sebastian's cheek turned bright red from the force of his contractor's slap; it stung, just a little bit—used to his bocchan's tendencies of lashing out whenever he was upset. It wasn't the first time that Ciel had slapped Sebastian and the demon knew that it wouldn't be the last.

Instead, the butler gave a softly bemused smile, head tilting to the side. "It seems as if the anger has taken the place of your drunkenness," he murmured, voice quiet as he continued watching the lordling for further reaction.

It was surprising, though, that despite how upset and fuming Ciel currently was—he hadn't made a move to take himself off of the demon's lap. And the fact that it had taken more than a moment for Ciel to actually lash out…

With that particular knowledge, the slap was adequate payment due.

Ciel's hand stung as his fingers balled into a fist of shaking anger. His nails dug into his palms and the sharp pricks of pain sobered him up quickly

The fact that Sebastian had kissed him so casually. It... it was-!

It was first time?

Ciel stopped dead in his thoughts. It was his first kiss? Lizzy had kissed on the cheeks as children. That didn't count then. And when- during- in that dark cage, he hadn't been kissed. They'd forced his mouth open though, even didn't care that he couldn't breathe and-

The boy wrapped his arms around himself, hands clenching into his shirt sleeves until he was sure they would rip, wanted them to rip.

"Don't..." Ciel whispered, harsh and desperate, "don't touch me."

"Bocchan," Sebastian murmured, pitching his voice soft, trying to be soothing. The demon's breath lightly fanned over Ciel's throat as he spoke his quiet words, lashes still keeping his gaze veiled. "Bocchan."

He didn't touch Ciel, though—kept to the other's request, but still hoped that his voice, the sound of the name that he had first called the earl, would somehow reach the boy.

"Ciel."

It was his name, so rarely uttered by his demon, that pulled Ciel from his waking nightmares. Like the strand of spidersilk that he had grasped to pull himself out of hell on that day, Ciel found himself clinging to Sebastian's voice.

With a startled gasp, he forced himself back into reality, unclenched his fingers from his shirtsleeves, his small body panting with effort.

"That's my contractor, my bocchan," Sebastian purred softly, voice dipping lower into something infinitely… tender? His fingertips lightly trailed over the edge of the boy's jawline, settling just beneath Ciel's chin to gently tip it upwards so that the lordling could once more look the demon in the eyes.

"You are mine, as I am yours—everything that I am is yours. There is nothing to fear from me: I have seen you at your worst, just as I have seen you at your best. There is a connection between us, my little lord, and it is a connection not easily broken. I am yours, I am patient, and I will wait."

The last was said with a quiet chuckle as the demon did as demons do and stole what he wanted: one last kiss, this time to the corner of the boy's mouth, letting his teeth scrape ever-so carefully: pointed canines and a tongue that was silken with lies told over centuries. And finally Sebastian pulled away.

Surprisingly, the boy tolerated this last kiss - a kiss sharper and infinitely more gentle than he thought the demon capable of. Ciel held his back ramrod straight, forced himself not to react into that touch.

"I don't believe you," he met the demon's eyes unblinkingly.

Yes, he knew that this demon was infatuated with him, but for how long? Ciel knew better to believe in the promises of a demon, knew that his contract - his power over Sebastian - would only last as long as the demon's interest in him. And to keep that interest, Ciel would have to be unhesitating. Ruthless.

Still, for the moment, caught between the after effects of adrenaline and the soporific edge of the rum, Ciel found himself leaning onto his butler. The train rattled soothingly around them.

Sebastian just quirked a small smile at that, slightly shaking his head in exasperation at his stubborn bocchan. Ciel was Ciel and though the demon wouldn't want his lordling to change—except in more interesting ways—the boy still had the habit of being annoyingly stubborn at the most inopportune times.

Still, though…

The demon smoothing the pad of his thumb over Ciel's bottom lip before sliding his hand to cup over the nape of the boy's neck, fingers massaging. "Go to sleep, bocchan. When you wake up, the effects of the alcohol will have dissipated."

"Alcohol...?" Ciel started, then started putting two and two together (albeit a bit slower than he would have liked). Eventually, he shot the half-eaten cake a glare, which he transferred to his butler. It probably wasn't his demon fault - if Sebastian did it, Ciel knew full well that he would have taken better advantage of the situation.

Still, his butler should have noticed. How would he be able to call himself a Phantomhive butler if he couldn't do even that?

"Well," Ciel gave a little pout, ignored the muzzy warm feeling behind his eyelids, tried to make his mind work in a logical fashion, "How do you get rid of it?"

"You sleep it off," Sebastian said with a bemused chuckle. His amusement very obviously danced in his gaze: didn't bother trying to hide his entertainment because Ciel would have known, anyway. "Sleep for a bit, bocchan. I'll wake you once we arrive—and I'll consider an appropriate punishment for Bard once we return back to the Phantomhive estate."

The demon's smile at that particular statement was enough to make a cold shiver run down most people's spines: the promise of wicked things, horrible punishments to come.

Still, though, Sebastian's touch was careful, infinitely gentle as he threaded his fingers through Ciel's hair, coaxing the lordling to sleep in the way that he knew best—the way that Ciel wouldn't ever admit to aloud for fear of being seen as weak. But the demon knew his master, knew him well: and so he easily soothed and coaxed the boy to slumber, keeping Ciel comfortably tucked against his chest as his contractor slept the journey away.

And it was a long journey—

It wasn't until nearly a full day had passed that Sebastian once more ran his fingers through Ciel's hair, head dipping down to lightly murmur against his contractor's ear: "Bocchan, wake up. We've arrived."

Rome, the heart of the Catholic religion.

And evil's favorite hunting grounds.

Ciel awoke the same way he did every morning: slowly and to the sound of Sebastian's voice. He blinked grogginess from his eyes a few times before he came to his surroundings. His gaze traced the inside of the train compartment, now dark except for the station lights filtering through their window.

"We're here...?" he shifted blearily.

His pillow was warm. Ciel blinked. Then blinked again. Then _realized_.

He sat up with a start, nearly banging his head into Sebastian's chin. He hadn't- he just- a glance confirmed that he just slept the afternoon and a good part of the night on Sebastian's lap. Ciel felt his face flush despite his vehement orders for it to stop - if only his body behaved as well as Sebastian.

"I'm thirsty," he announced suddenly, anything to distract Sebastian. It was just his luck that his demon saw too well in the dark.

Unfortunately for Ciel, Sebastian did see well in the dark—how could he not, when it was his native environment? Also unfortunately for the Queen's Watchdog, _he_ couldn't see nearly as well as his butler in the dark, and so Ciel missed the subtle glint of amusement that deepened the mahogany of Sebastian's gaze.

Still, as much fun as it would have been to tease his bocchan over that blush, Ciel had mentioned a discomfort that the butler was duty-bound to address. "What would you like to drink, bocchan?" the demon murmured, moving to stand and taking his tailcoat from on top of Ciel—used as a makeshift blanket to keep the boy warm. He shrugged into it, movements economical and yet graceful despite it. "I can prepare some tea for you, or I can fetch water or fruit juice from the dining cart if you wish for something else."

He waited for the lordling to express an interest, expression neutral though Ciel wouldn't have been able to see. (But that was besides the point since Sebastian prided himself on his aesthetics.)

Ciel was inwardly grateful for those exact aesthetics: It made Sebastian a little more predictable.

"Tea," he rubbed at his eyes and tried to stretch away the uncomfortable feeling of having slept in his clothes. Ciel quickly decided that... rumpled... was not a good look for him.

"What's the situation in Rome?" he asked, hearing the porcelain _clink _of Sebastian brewing tea more than actually seeing him in the dark. He had no doubt that his butler would already know the details.

There was a brief pause in the soft sounds of the porcelain of the tea service clicking gently together.

"I cannot be completely sure, since I haven't yet left the train, bocchan, but..."

Sebastian fell silent for a moment, taking the time to light a match and set the wick of the compartment's lantern to burning. The still-burning match was then used to light the traveling stove, and Sebastian began to heat the water for Ciel's tea.

"There have been rumors, ones I have been able to neither confirm nor deny, that the Queen has set your counterpart into motion, as well."

It was just a feeling, true, but Sebastian had learned to trust those inclinations when he had Fallen so long ago.

The last time he had come across _that demon_ had been in Rome, too, and Sebastian knew that the other loved ironies.

Just a feeling, true-

But there had been spidersilk in the darkness when last he had looked.

"The Spider...?" Ciel frowned. The Watchdog and the Spider had never met in any situation. Ciel would have not known of its existence if it weren't for the hidden records he found in his father's study. After all, the Spider was supposed to clean up his cases. However, Ciel (and therefore Sebastian) never bothered anyone to do their own dirty work. Clean up, Ciel had assumed, was a necessary part of his duty. It had been unnecessary, not to mention a waste of time, to contact someone else for it.

Briefly, Ciel wondered what the current head of the Trancy household was like. The previous had apparently had a range of disgusting hobbies that everyone gossiped about behind perfumed fans and laced gloves. No wonder the man had been a social recluse. Ciel had thought that the Her Majesty the Queen's Spider would have died out with the unsavory man.

He watched Sebastian's movements, his single eye reflecting the amber of the stove. There was something... off... about Sebastian this time. It was hard for Ciel to put a finger on it, but there was something his butler wasn't telling him.

Sometimes, Ciel wondered if Sebastian knew that he wasn't as unreadable as he thought he was. For as much as Sebastian watched Ciel, was attentive to his every needs, Ciel watched Sebastian tenfold. It was his responsibility to know ever nuance of his weapon, his demon - even Sebastian's fake, bland, practiced expressions hid something under the surface.

It was the most complex puzzle game that Ciel had had in a long time.

It was easy enough to feel Ciel's gaze upon him, the sharp eyes, the rush and retreat of the boy's thoughts.

Sebastian bowed his head, hiding his face with the dark silk of his hair-hiding the wicked smile that quirked the corners of his mouth upwards just the littlest bit.

"A shilling for your thoughts, bocchan?"

Ciel raised an eyebrow. He laced his fingers together and rested his head on his hands, his mouth quirked in a smug, challenging smile.

"Isn't that my line?"

"Ah, but I've beaten you to it this time around," Sebastian retorted in kind, hair still veiling the smile that had deepened from Ciel.

Gesture graceful, Sebastian picked up the pot by its handle, pouring the lightly steaming water into the travel-sized teapot.

Soon enough, the calming scent of jasmine green tea filled the compartment.

The corners of Ciel's lips softened slightly, just as it was wont to do when his demon said something particularly ridiculous. The fact that Sebastian had basically told him "but I asked you first" was amusing. It was something unthinkable a few years ago, at the beginning of their contract. Back then, Sebastian had been stiff, almost mechanical in his role.

And his cakes had tasted bad.

Now, his companionship was much more interesting. Even preferable.

Ciel gazed away from his butler, mirth still dancing in his eye, "Something's bothering you about this case."

Ciel's words finally caused Sebastian to look up, eyes slightly wide.

He had always relied heavily upon watching Ciel, knowing his master's moods, gauging and guessing at the thoughts that went on within that chess-like mind.

It surprised him at times, like now, to realize that Ciel had just as quietly, as intently, been watching right back.

Knowing that he had given an obvious stumble and irritated at himself for it, the butler glanced away and instead began to pour the tea into the young nobleman's cup.

"Oh? And why do you think that?" Sebastian idly asked as he handed Ciel the teacup.

Ciel smiled into the teacup as breathed in the delicate notes of jasmine, balanced by the earthy aroma of the green tea before taking a sip. It was perfect, of course. He took another sip, bemused.

"You're being purposefully vague," he finally decided on, "and avoiding the question."

"Ah, but you are also fully aware, bocchan, that I am a demon-and demons always ask for bargains before giving over power or information," said demon responded with as he lightly quirked an eyebrow at Ciel, putting the tea set away now that he had a pot ready for his contractor.

"Of course," Ciel's teacup _clinked _gently as he set it upon his saucer.

It would have been easy enough to order Sebastian to tell him, but Ciel was willing to play this game for as long as it was entertaining. The banter between was both comforting in its familiarity and exciting in its challenge.

"And what else could I bargain with?" Ciel met his demon's eyes with a small, wry smile.

"A kiss," Sebastian answered simply with a slow curl of a smile, eyes sparking eerily in the lamplight. "A kiss willingly given, willingly participated in."

"Hmm..." Ciel gave this some thought and tried not to blush as he recalled the rum cake incident earlier. He cleared his throat.

"Since you've already stolen a kiss from me, I'll only meet you halfway," he announced, his eyes cool and challenging, daring Sebastian to argue. "A kiss willingly, but not participated in."

"Ah, but you've already got your retribution for the stolen kiss and defended your honor when you slapped me," Sebastian rebutted, giving a small, coy smile as his eyebrow quirked higher, head tilted to the side so that the strands of hair that were perhaps getting a bit _too_ long brushed over one shoulder.

"Are you afraid, bocchan, that you would like the kiss too well should you participate in it?" the demon challenged back.

"That's true," Ciel allowed, a small exasperated smile playing over his features, "Unfortunately, it wasn't _that _kiss that I was referring to."

Ciel took a silent breath and decided. He wasn't exactly sure why Sebastian was choosing to initiate this game - he had never expressed interest like this before. But there wasn't a game that Ciel couldn't win, and now that Ciel had chosen to participate, he wouldn't hold back.

The young earl stood in a fluid motion and walked over until he stood in front of his butler. With a single, lace-cuffed hand, he reached up and freed Sebastian's tie from his vest and jacket, tugged on it until his butler's face was level with his own.

"You misunderstand. It wasn't _my_ participation that I was denying," he gave a bemused, indulgent smile despite the pattering of his heart.

"Don't move," the boy murmured as he leaned close and kissed his demon.

It was always so much more entertaining, so much more engaging when either he or the boy upped the stakes in their game: challenges and mocking that only the other would understand, comments worded to raise the other's hackles—manipulations all gained so that one or the other would come out the victor in their game.

Despite the fact that Ciel had given him an order to not move, Sebastian still considered this a win in the way that it was Ciel who had instigated the kiss, not the demon—it was a change, a shift in their dealings with one another.

And though Ciel said not to move, he hadn't ordered the demon's silence: to which, Sebastian gave a low, rumbling growl that was all bestial—a demon's purr of pleasure.

Sebastian's lips were warm and surprisingly soft against his own. Ciel moved his mouth hesitatingly and was entirely unprepared for that... raw, carnal noise that his demon made. He took a sharp intake of breath and pulled back, less confident than when he started but determined to see it through nonetheless.

It was with both surprise and relief that Ciel realized nothing about the kiss had reminded him of his past.

"Well," he was losing the fight against the heat on his face, "live up to your end of the bargain."

Sebastian's smile was slow in coming and perfectly sensual when he saw the blush upon Ciel's cheeks.

"There was a demon that I had met once long ago. We had… a dispute, the last time that we had come into contact with one another. I do not know what name he will go by now, but I do believe that he will probably be in the city. I've felt his power as we came closer and closer to Rome."

"'A dispute'..." the earl repeated, meeting Sebastian's gaze.

It was odd, somehow, that Sebastian had a life other than the one he had dedicated to Ciel. Logically, Ciel knew that his demon had lived millenniums, perhaps longer. But the strange possessiveness that he felt over "Sebastian" was so complete that it was hard to consider the demon in any other time or form.

He voiced none of his doubts out loud, and instead asked the most pressing question: "Will he be a problem?"

"If he is as I remember him to be?" Sebastian asked, expression vaguely irritated. "Then yes, perhaps." Not that the demon intended to let the other complicate Ciel's mission here in Rome. If the spider demon decided to stick his web-covered fingers in the bocchan's business, then Sebastian would just have to break them off.

One by one.

"But as you've realized, my Lord, I'm rather talented at dealing with problems."

"So you are," Ciel let his eyes soften in acknowledgment, before schooling his features, "Dress me. I want to be off this train and starting the investigation."

"Yes, my Lord," Sebastian said as he knelt upon the ground before the boy.

So self-assured, always stepping forward, always ready to meet the next challenge. The hunger stirred within Sebastian, and when he glanced up, shadows flickered and stretched around his body—reaching out with sliding, subtle touches to extinguish the flame of the lantern and bring the cabin into darkness so that Sebastian could dress his bocchan in privacy.

For a moment longer than usual, the demon's fingers lingered over Ciel's scar.

The compartment was thrown into darkness once more.

Slowly, his vest was unbuttoned, his shirt beneath with the same, almost-neutral touch.

Ciel did not flinch then, nor when Sebastian's hand mapped the grotesque bumps and ridges of unfeeling flesh. He found it odd that somehow, because this was Sebastian, he didn't mind the touch. Briefly, he considered if it was because he'd overthrown his trauma of it, but the mere thought of anyone seeing this disgusting symbol made him nauseated.

There was a time when Sebastian's touch had been clinical, and Ciel now realized that it hadn't been for a long time.

"Careful, bocchan," came Sebastian's quiet murmur in the darkness of the compartment as the demon steadied his contractor so that Ciel could step into a new pair of shorts. His touches were equally careful as he guided Ciel's hands into the sleeves of a new shirt, guiding the boy's limbs with an expert touch that didn't presume to be commanding.

When he finished redressing the young nobleman and had put away the travelling kit for the tea service, Sebastian relit the lanterns (the normal way), and opened the door for Ciel. "Shall we be off?"

Sebastian's gaze was heavy as he watched Ciel make his way forward.

The earl stepped out of the compartment, made his way down the hall with only the heat and flickering orange glow of Sebastian's lantern at his back. It wasn't until he stepped off the steps into the night - much warmer than he was used to in London - that he turned back to Sebastian.

"Call up a carriage. We'll start at the Vatican."

"As you wish," the nobleman's butler answered promptly, giving the lantern to the early morning porter on shift; once his hands were free, Sebastian stepped up to the curb, hailing a hackney almost immediately—despite the fact that all of the other customers were each vying for transportation, and all with no luck.

Giving a cat-got-the-canary smile, Sebastian ordered the drive to place their things atop the carriage before turning to Ciel to help him inside and following soon after. It wasn't much long after that that they were both underway to the seat of the Catholic Church's power.

Sebastian snorted suddenly, looking over at the young nobleman. "How familiar are you with the Catholic faith, bocchan~?"

Immediately, Ciel remembered his mother's voice, soft and lilting as she helped him recite bedtime prayers. She would clasp her warm hands over his own little ones as they prayed, and afterwards touch their foreheads together. Sometimes, she would rub noses with him and he was so ticklish that he'd end up giggling. Once, Father had heard him, joined in and the both of them had tickled him until he thought he would burst from laughing and happiness.

He pushed the memory away.

"Not much," Ciel looked disinterestedly out the small window, "It's just people willingly deluding themselves in the end anyway."

Sebastian couldn't help but laugh quietly at that, the rough sound of a raven's caw slipping into the normally composed sound.

"Not quite," the demon corrected with a slow smile. "After all, I exist; correct?"

Ciel turned and quirked an eyebrow at that, "I didn't think that you followed religion. Or that religion created you."

It was odd. Sebastian had never seemed to be a typical demon described in the texts. Then again, Ciel had never met any demon other than Sebastian. Who knew - maybe all demons had smarmy smirks.

"Ah, but now you're just deliberately misunderstanding me," Sebastian said with a soft snort, purposefully echoing Ciel's earlier words. "Religion did not create me: my brethren and I were here long before humanity came to be. However, religion _believes_ in us—in me. Doesn't that make you wonder what else religion might also be right about?"

The demon quirked an eyebrow in challenge and in return, waiting to see how Ciel to rise to his words and answer him.

The earl sitting across from the demon considered, "I highly doubt that you exist to 'test humanity's faith' or anything as compassionate as that." Ciel scoffed. If anything, that logic would be used to justify those who had brushes with demons, or simply to use the concept of demons as a deterrent for bad social behavior. Accusing witchcraft and Satanism was still a good scapegoat excuse to persecute anyone - except those who had the wealth, of course.

"But the other, less moralistic ideas, might have merit. Then... demons have a hierarchy, perhaps. And are organized in a militaristic fashion, with legions to command."

This time, Ciel's lips twitched upwards in a smirk, all sharp edges and bemusement, "Did you abandon your position?"

Sebastian laughed at that, caught off guard by the question and openly filled with amusement. "Of course not," the demon said with a sly smile in return. "What's the point of desiring, of gaining power, if you don't have the ability to _keep_ it once you have it? I still have my position, bocchan. I just prefer a more hand's-on approach to how I conduct my business."

The butler leaned back against the seat of the hackney, humming softly for a moment before posing his next question for the young nobleman: "If what you say is true and that demons have a hierarchy—and if it really _is_ true—where do you suppose I come in?"

He knew that he was flirting with dangerous information there, knew that a demon shouldn't ever give away more information than was bargained for, but Sebastian also knew that his young contractor was incredibly intelligent: the fact that Ciel had brought up the structure of the "aristocrats" obviously was done with a point.

This time, Ciel gave an outright grin, his left eye a piercing sapphire - all sharp edges and brightly cut.

"The top. Otherwise, I'll be severely disappointed in contracting you."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Such an ego you have, bocchan," Sebastian chided in answer, smirking as he reached out and trailed leather-covered fingers over the edge of Ciel's jawline.

Here, though, Sebastian's smile quirked just a bit more wickedly—knowing full well that he was skating on thin ice and slipping into a dangerous game. "I wonder if you can guess my name, Ciel Phantomhive."

~TBC~


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**

* * *

**

The earl met his demon's gaze evenly. In the first few months he had contracted Sebastian, Ciel had read extensively on demons. Everything and anything he could find. The descriptions, instructions about how to make a demonic sacrifice had made him throw up more than once, but he had pressed on, desperate to find what he had just done. And more importantly, _how to use it._

Now, it no longer seemed such a large issue. Sebastian was, without a doubt, his weapon, his butler, and his demon. It didn't matter exactly _who_ or _what _he was if he got the job done.

Still, he remembered the contents of his research - and the conclusions that he had drawn.

"Oh?" Ciel's smile mirrored his demon's as he inquired, "And what will I gain if I guess correctly?"

"Sated curiosity," Sebastian answered with a muted chuckle, lashes lowering as he shifted just enough to prop his cheek against a hand.

All of his instincts screamed at him to back off, to change the subject and keep the boy from actually speaking that name aloud should Ciel truly guess correctly. And yet…

And yet, the boy constantly took risks, continued to strive forwards on his own terms. There was a chance, true, that Ciel would guess correctly: but what of it? The contract had already been made and one was bound to the other. They were as close as the bindings could currently make them—very few things could tie them even closer together.

Move indulgent and idle, Sebastian crossed his legs and waited for Ciel's answer.

Ciel noted the change in the demon's body language. His demeanor was regal, challenging - and Ciel was satisfied that at least his first guess was right. Sebastian was definitely not the run-of-the-mill demon.

With their gazes locked as they were, Ciel could make out the barely shifting hues of red behind his butler's eyes.

But this was the wrong reason and the wrong time. Ciel had never done anything to sate his curiosity - he would use everything with purpose. Even if everyone were just pawns, he would hoard them, use them as much as possible, and only sacrifice them if the trade was worth it.

"No," the boy said, with an indecipherable smile, "Not yet. As they say: 'curiosity killed the cat'."

"And satisfaction brought it back," Sebastian retorted with a small chuckle.

But the hackney was slowing its pace, eventually stopping at the curb in front of the Vatican. The demon smiled slightly at that, lashes lowering once more to veil his red-tinted gaze. When those dark lashes lifted to reveal the demon's eyes, the butler's gaze was again deep brown—and the human guise had returned.

Stepping out of the carriage, Sebastian gave a slight bow and offered his hand to Ciel to help the young nobleman from the higher than usual step (since Sebastian had quietly ordered the step on the Phantomhive carriage to be lowered enough so that Ciel could easily get in and out of the carriage—which, of course, the lordling had never commented upon… perhaps because he would have been aware that it was an acknowledgment from Sebastian that he was rather short for his age).

Ordering the hackneyman to wait until they had returned from their chore—Italian flawless, of course—Sebastian paused for just a brief moment as he was making his way back to Ciel's side.

The wind had shifted, was now blowing towards them and past the Church's home.

And Sebastian recognized the familiar stench of an annoying spider demon. He was here, and he was somehow or other involved in this particular case; eyes narrowing slightly as he and Ciel made their way towards the Vatican's entrance, Sebastian wished that he had squashed the bug when he had had the chance. It wasn't proper to have pests running around and being allowed free-range, after all.

The young earl walked briskly through the pillared courtyard, up the marbled and ornately crafted doors. The larger doors were locked, of course, considering the hour. Walking down the arched hallways, however, Ciel found a smaller, open door and an entire scene in front of him.

The abbey was full of policemen in uniform, most of whom looked a sickly shade of green. Despite the fact that Ciel spoke very little Italian, it was clear from the sheer amount of dried blood on the walls that this was the location of a small massacre.

Ciel Phantomhive took a breath of clean, cold air and stepped sharply through the door.

While Ciel stepped forward through the door and into the crime scene, Sebastian curled his lip slightly at what he could see through that door: a horrible waste of resources and pawns, and the stink of demon everywhere.

Needless to say, the spider demon's demon aesthetics were as sloppy as ever.

Movements neat and economical, Sebastian followed his young contractor—Ciel would need his help, after all, with the Italian that the foreign country's police force spoke—and glanced further about the room from beneath his lashes. The last time that he and the other demon had… disagreed… the spider had enjoyed leaving behind a particular type of calling card for others of his kind to come across.

Perhaps he had changed since then (it had been two thousand years, after all), but it couldn't hurt to look—and, should Sebastian come across that "card," then he would be able to narrow the search exponentially.

"Ciao," Sebastian greeted the head inspector, giving a slight bow before gesturing to the much smaller nobleman. "_My name is Sebastian Michaelis, and I am a butler of the Phantomhive family. This is my master, Ciel Phantomhive. You should have been notified to expect us…? We're here to lend a hand to your case, sir_."

The inspector harrumphed and looked Ciel over: from the tip of his top hat wearing head to the bottoms of his slightly heeled boots (anything possible to gain several more precious inches in height?).

He was Not Impressed.

This babe in diapers was supposed to help with an investigation where some of his best men could barely stand being at the crime scene for more than five minutes…? Highly unlikely. Decision made, the Italian man opened his mouth to dismiss Ciel.

Ciel, on the other hand, ignored the head inspector entirely, and had already started his investigation. If he waited for approval from every pompous man, he would get nowhere and definitely be unable to remain as the Queen's Watchdog.

Taking a leisurely walk around the abbey, Ciel noted that the blood was long dry and despite how many policemen were blundering around the scene, they left relatively no damage on the evidence. This was some small luck at least.

There were footsteps crusted in brown, seeped into the white marble. The clearest were found walking out the abbey door - the majority of policemen were gathered around it, measuring and mapping. The rest were haphazardly strewn around the crime scene.

No. Not haphazardly.

Ciel placed his own, smaller foot onto the print, and followed the steps. He started slow at first, struggling a bit as he used the footprints as guides, had to adjust to the longer gait of the man who made these. Then he found his footing, whirled across the floor even when the footsteps degenerated into masses of crusty black and copper. It was exactly as Sebastian taught him.

"He was waltzing," Ciel stopped at the inconspicuous side entrance of the abbey, where the footsteps had taken him. The earl looked down at the last piece of evidence, the arcs of dried brown that had sprayed outwards from his feet. This time, the footprint was inverted, a clear patch of white marble, framed by dried blood.

"The culprit's feet had been clean here," Ciel announced, not particularly caring how much the head investigator understood him. "This was the first victim - who was here?"

Scowling darkly at the child who had immediately stepped into the crime scene as if he had owned it, the head inspector looked over at Sebastian for translation. The butler snorted and brought up a hand to hide his amused smile, though the look that he slanted at Ciel from the corner of his eyes told the contractor that Sebastian was very unlikely to forget about this.

Still, though, the demon did his job and spoke to the inspector, speaking Ciel's words but in Italian so that the language barrier between the two could be bridged. The older man snorted once the butler had finished speaking and idly shook his head, glancing away from Sebastian and the boy that had accompanied him to look over to where the first victim had fallen. "_It was a bishop_," the policeman explained, scowl still firmly placed as his (default?) expression. "_His name was Bertók Lotto; he had recently been sent here by the Archbishop in his district, which was in Hungary. He had been here only a week before he was killed_."

Absently, Sebastian translated the man's words for Ciel.

But his eyes were narrowed in distaste, glancing away from both humans to look over the crime scene once more. Waltzing. And the first victim's name was Bertók? "Bright raven"? The insect obviously thought that he was being funny.

How annoying.

Ciel noted the odd expression on Sebastian's face, but decided not to remark on it. Appearances needed to be kept up, after all. Still, the boy branded every line of his butler's face into his mind, turning it over and over in his memory. He had gained an interesting curiosity, another dimension of the puzzle that was Sebastian - Ciel had never seen the demon look so annoyed and uncomfortable.

The young earl gave the murder scene another once over and decided that there was nothing else of particular interest. He walked past the inspector, tilted his head up with a smirk, and stepped sharply out of the abbey. Even with a language barrier, there were some things that didn't need words to be understood.

The boy and the demon walked a respectable distance away from the Vatican, boots tapping and echoing eerily against cobblestone. Ciel stopped under a lamp post, leaned his back against it. His eyes and most of his face were thrown into shadow by the harsh, yellow lighting.

"So," he crossed his arms, "It was that demon, wasn't it."

"It was," Sebastian acknowledged with a sigh that bordered on exasperated. "He usually enjoys leaving different types of calling cards—in this particular case, it was the name of the bishop."

Irritated, Sebastian shook his head and glanced off down the street before continuing in an absent tone of voice: "However… despite the fact that his stench was all over the crime scene, I don't think that he's the one behind the previous murders that brought us here, bocchan. The insect is relatively boring compared to other demons: he's methodical and logical—he doesn't have much creativity. There wasn't any _reason_ for him to be at the crime scene in the Vatican."

So why…?

Sebastian's eyes narrowed as he continued looking down the street, arms crossed as he leaned against the wall a little ways away from Ciel. The evidence piled upwards: when would a demon who was usually incredibly droll show a flair of personality, of creativity? When would a demon's personality be most likely to shift and change, to go against thousands of years worth of behavior?

The answer was simple as Sebastian returned his gaze to his bocchan: when a demon entered into a contract.

Ciel considered this new information. A demon, who apparently Sebastian considered distasteful, acting out of character. It was slightly ironic that his demon considered "methodical and logical" to be boring when Ciel would have used the same traits to describe himself.

There was something else missing.

Ciel found himself examining his own demon and the circumstances of their meeting. Could someone have summoned up a demon in the abbey? Then again, if the footprints did belong to that demon, why would he _waltz_ at the scene? Definitely not the character that Sebastian was describing. (Unless he was an idiot.)

Which begged the question of whether the demon was acting on his own, or if he had a contractor.

"You say 'insect'," Ciel brought a thoughtful hand to his face, touched his lips with leather gloved fingers, "Why?"

"While we can take any guise that we wish, there are usually several forms that become our favorites," Sebastian murmured after a moment, an internal debate with himself over whether or not he wanted to give Ciel this particular set of information about himself and his kind. "This demon has a particular affinity for—"

Sebastian broke off then, eyes narrowing dangerously as it came together. The shadows deepened, darkening around his body. Holding out a hand for Ciel, he began to make his way back towards the hackney.

As he helped his bocchan back into the small carriage, Sebastian finished his thought and then gave the driver the direction of the district of where he remembered the other demon usually favoring the last time they had both been in Rome.

"Spiders, bocchan. He has a particular affinity for spiders."

"Of course," Ciel scoffed, his lips twisting into a mockery of a smile, "It seems that we should do a bit of research on the current head of the Trancy household and exactly how he gained that title. After all, the former head seems to have died rather abruptly."

It couldn't have been a coincidence. Ciel didn't believe in coincidences.

"If it's as you suspect, then the original strings of deaths had nothing to do with the Spider," the boy's eyes narrowed, "but after they received the summons, as we did, they started to kill on their own. The question remains: why?"

It made no logical, discernible sense. Why did Her Majesty the Queen summon Trancy if he was just going to commit treason to the Crown? This was the first that Ciel had ever heard of the Spider coming out of the woodwork (so to speak), unless it was done in secret without touching his vast network of informants. Originally, Ciel had considered this impossible -it seemed that all corpses eventually found their way to the Undertaker's- but this was doubtful now. If Trancy had a demon at his disposal, that theory was moot.

Well, the easiest answer to his question was simple: Trancy was crazy.

Other than that, Ciel found himself at a loss without more information.

"I suppose that we can always ask that question to the current contractor," Sebastian commented idly as he pushed aside the curtain to the hackney to reveal the hotel villa where the Trancy household was currently staying.

A young blonde boy was perched on the banister of the steps leading up to the hotel's entrance—and when he saw Sebastian and Ciel peeking out of the window of the carriage, the boy winked and blew them a kiss.

Ciel blinked. And blinked again.

The blond boy was still there, wearing the same ridiculously short trousers in flamboyant maroon - the same ugly color of his coat and vest. A giant, lavender bow at the boy's neck topped off the ridiculous outfit, its size seemingly mocking the respectable navy blue one that Ciel wore.

"_That's_ the current head of the Trancy household?" Ciel couldn't help but say softly. The boy looked more like a prostitute than an Earl. Or even a functioning member of society.

Not for the first time, Ciel wondered if all demons had strange tastes.

(But, then again, when Claude wasn't stealing other demons' meals, he seemed to have a particularly twisted sense of what he liked in a contractor.)

Still, Ciel would take the opportunity for what it was. He took a short moment to compose himself, then nodded to Sebastian to open the door.

It took just a moment for the demon to follow his master's order, shifting up from his seat in the snug carriage and reaching out to settle his fingers upon the knob just as Claude stepped out to join Alois, scooping the blonde boy up in his arms. Silently, Sebastian opened the hackney door and stepped out onto the street—once more reaching up to help Ciel out of the carriage.

"Claude~~" Alois cheerfully said with a soft giggle, legs swinging idly back and forth when he was settled comfortably in Claude's hold as he looked the newcomers over. "We have guests!"

The boy didn't bother to move on his own—just waited for his butler to carry him back inside since he was still sore from the activities that the demon had put him through—and continued looking Ciel over. It was the first time that he had ever come across another contractor and his demon, and Alois' gaze sharpened with feral hunger as he stared at Ciel.

In answer to that, Sebastian came up behind the composed nobleman to settle his hands possessively over Ciel's shoulders. And Alois? Alois just laughed quietly to that, though his smile of so-called "welcome" sharpened further to a razor's edge.

The glint of the boy's smile did not go unnoticed by Ciel. At least it seemed that the boy was only partially crazy - more than enough for him to be responsible for the actions of his demon.

The said demon was also a curious thing. It was clear from his dress that he was a butler and behind the reflection off his glasses, Ciel caught a flash of sharp, golden eyes.

Still, even if this was Italy, Ciel was English and he had proprieties.

"Greetings, Lord Trancy." Ciel didn't bother to bow. He kept his eyes at a neutral distance over the boy's head - straying too far down meant that he would be forced to see an inappropriate amount of thigh as the boy kicked his feet like a child in the arms of his butler.

"I am Earl Ciel Phantomhive, and I believe that you know why I am here."

Alois Trancy laughed at that, reaching up to twine his arms around Claude's neck, nuzzling affectionately at the bend of his butler's throat before nipping lightly to leave behind a bruise. It was just so much fun seeing Ciel's face light up with a blush at what he did with Claude—and, ooooooh~ If Ciel ever found out what they _really_ got up to, the blonde couldn't help but wonder if Ciel would expire from an apocalyptic fit.

But that also just made things so much more fun!

The blonde didn't bother to hide another sharp smile, fingers idly playing with strands of Claude's hair before taking the glasses from his demon to perch them on the tip of his own nose, inspecting Ciel over the rim of them.

"Why so formal, Ciel?" Alois teased, raising an eyebrow and keeping the glasses on for the duration of his entertainment. "Since we're in such a similar predicament, shouldn't we be the _best_ of _friends_?"

…nevermind the fact that Alois didn't have "friendship" in mind for Ciel, but that part of the trap would take a while to eventually spring. Until then, his fun and games came by messing up _Ciel's_ "fun and games." Throwing all of the other boy's chess pieces to the ground to disrupt things was something that Alois had been looking forward to for months—and the game between the both of them had started already since it was apparent that the other contractor had just arrived from the Vatican.

Alois could still smell the darkness of the place clinging tightly to Ciel's clothes.

The darkness radiating from behind Ciel was stronger, however. Claude's face gave nothing away as he met the gaze of Sebastian Michaelis. It had been centuries, after all, since their last meeting. The other demon's power, it seemed, had not changed.

What _had _changed was the possessive hands that Sebastian Michaelis kept pressed to his contractor's shoulders. Interesting. Claude briefly wondered if it was due to the conclusion of their last... exchange.

The boy himself was a young and pretty thing, just as his own contractor was - all dark beauty and sapphire gem edges. His posture was sure, bordering on arrogant. It seemed that the other demon's tastes had not changed much either - he always seemed to like the willful types.

"Oh?" Ciel Phantomhive tugged his lips upward in a smug, superior smile, "How presumptuous. Especially since you've yet to introduce yourself."

Alois shrugged a shoulder to Ciel's chiding, pushing Claude's glasses up to rest atop his head. "What's the point of introducing yourself when the other person already knows who you are? It's stupid and most people are pieces of shit, anyway, so why bother?"

There was silence for a moment, and then the boy laughed suddenly, finally giving the glasses back to his own butler but cleaning them neatly on the edge of his shirt (though there were still fingerprint smudges on the clear lenses when Alois placed them primly on the bridge of Claude's nose). "Though~ Come inside, Ciel. We've been expecting you, and Timber's made lunch for everyone."

He reached around Claude then, pushing the door open so that they could return to the hotel's foyer and head back inside now that their guests had arrived.

Sebastian, however, made no move to follow the second contractor and his demon—who was now calling himself Claude, apparently—and instead kept his secure hold upon Ciel's shoulders. He had seen the way that the spider demon had looked upon his bocchan, remembered what happened the last time that they had clashed with one another.

"If you wish to follow them, stay close by my side throughout the duration of our visit," Ciel's butler finally said after a prolonged moment of silence: his words unusual in that they were neither his usual banter nor his tongue-in-cheek suggestions; there was an edge of command in Sebastian's voice. And—perhaps—concern, as well.

Ciel only raised an eyebrow in reply.

Usually, Sebastian would let him run headfirst into any sort of situation. The demon seemed to enjoy finding Ciel thoroughly roughed up before he stepped in to slyly save the day. The low urgency in his butler's voice now was unexpected. If Sebastian was wary, this did not bode well.

Still, Ciel had not come this far simply to hesitate at Trancy's doorstep.

The young earl tilted his head up, caught his demon's eye. Clumsily, with more instinct than actual know-how, Ciel mentally reached toward the connection that was forged with their contract. He had done it a few times before, mostly when he was staring down the barrel of some hoodlum's gun, his mind raging with a single, silent order for Sebastian. And then, despite the odds, Sebastian had been _there_, had somehow heard him despite the fact he never uttered a word.

It was the first time he tried it intentionally. Ciel felt his right eye burn under his eye-patch - the same it always did whenever he issued a particularly ruthless order. Despite the pain, the familiarity of the seal was comforting, just as was the implication of trust. Despite everything and anything, Ciel knew that Sebastian would be there to save him. He wondered if he imagined the answering heat on Sebastian's left hand, still clasped to his shoulder.

The moment passed and Ciel gave his butler a self-assured smile before stepping out of his demon's protective embrace, and walked through the door.

It was hard, harder than Sebastian previously would have thought, the difficulty coming in having to let Ciel step away from him and head into the darkened entrance of the hotel's suite's foyer. If Sebastian had been in a much more lively mood, he would have happily made a comment about the boy stepping arrogantly into the "belly of the beast"—but that lively mood was not now, and there would be no offhand comments until Sebastian had Ciel safely away from Claude.

His fingers curled tight, gloves clenching snugly around Sebastian's hands as he attempted to restrain himself from reaching out and pulling Ciel back towards him and away from the threat of the other demon. But the boy had a mind of his own-one of the things about Ciel that had always intrigued the Phantomhive butler, no matter the situation that they found themselves in-and Sebastian finally took a step forward, then another and another after that so that he could come after the boy. As he made his way past Claude and the promiscuous boy that the other demon was still carrying in his arms, Sebastian's lashes lowered to veil his gaze: time seemed to slow for just a moment-but a moment was all it took to pose the only warning that the spider would ever get from Sebastian.

"I will not allow a repeat of our last meeting. If you try to take the bocchan from me, I will most assuredly rip your existence to shreds."

Returning back to time where moments didn't stretch into eternity, Sebastian took another step forward and another following that, making his way through the foyer towards the dining room so that he may stand behind Ciel as the boy settled at the dinner table.

Alois watched the interaction between the two demons, quirking a small smile as he finger-walked leisurely over Claude's collarbone. "...he doesn't seem to like you very much~~"

The butler in question did not respond. Instead, Claude set his master with great care onto a chair across from Ciel Phantomhive. On cue, the Thompson, Timber and Canterbury trio stepped into the dining hall and placed bowls of soup and freshly toasted bread in front of the two boys. Hannah entered just as silently and went about filling juice and water glasses.

Claude briefly considered if he should offer to take Ciel Phantomhive's coat, as it was his own duty. He quickly decided against it - it would be more trouble than it was worth considering the glare that Sebastian Michaelis was giving him. It was odd how... defensive the other demon was.

Still, Claude's face remained as clear and stark as the pressed linen napkin he folded onto his master's lap. Slowly, with barely a _clink_ of the silver against the soul bowl, he fed his master a sip.

As Alois delicately ate the soup that Claude presented to him, he watched Ciel from beneath half-lidded eyes as he kept himself from slurping at the food. When he had first come to the Trancy manor and had become "Alois" in body and soul, it had been an effort to learn all of the manners that he was supposed to know: which silverware out of the line of cutlery was appropriate to use and when, how to sit, how to talk, how to move so that others could properly be in awe of a nobleman and the body language that he presented to the world.

The lessons, however, had been learned.

So Alois did not slurp at his soup—

Though Sebastian, when he saw Claude feeding the boy his lunch, had to resist the slight curl of his mouth that he would have otherwise given in reaction. The helplessness of this contractor was startling and bordering on almost pathetic: to the point that the demon hand-fed him.

And yet…

Alois watched Ciel and Sebastian right now, lips shifting upwards in a small, twisted smile; it was almost as if he could read the thoughts kept very carefully behind veiled gazes that remained hooded and on the defensive for Ciel and Sebastian both. The smile just deepened further as the blonde contractor reached up and stilled Claude's ministrations with fingers that circled the demon's wrist like a noose.

"Hey, Ciel. Have you ever wondered about 'libera nos a malo'? About how it would apply to us?"

Almost gently, Alois' fingers tightened further around Claude's wrist to the point where even the demon would sport bruises in the shape of the hold that his young contractor had upon him.

Ciel watched the display in front of him with as much disgust as his demon. He schooled the expression under years of training, and expressly did not touch his soup. He was not here to fraternize, nor watch this boy show off his ridiculous afflictions.

"'Deliver us from evil'," he translated Alois' seemingly cryptic message easily. His Latin was not as strong as he liked, but as an Englishman, he would have been braindead to not recognize the line from the Lord's Prayer.

Ciel found himself unimpressed. He had been expecting more from this contractor than badly executed word games. Did Trancy really consider them equals - two helpless boys under the control of evil demons who sought to corrupt their pure souls? The earl mentally scoffed at this, his features settling into an amused expression.

"'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here'," he quoted in response, in English, because his own word puzzle didn't need to mask its complexity in another language. In a bored, indolent motion, the young earl gestured his butler toward his still-empty teacup, "Sebastian, make me some proper tea."

"Yes, my Lord," Sebastian murmured with a slight bow as he stepped off to the side to begin making tea for his lordling. He produced a small bag of Ciel's favorite Earl Grey from seemingly out of nowhere, tested the tea set and the hot water to ensure that they were clean—one couldn't be overly careful when dealing with a spider butler: Claude didn't even care enough about his role to wipe away the small drip that had landed on the edge of Ciel's bowl, nevermind the fact that bocchan wouldn't have eaten the food, anyway.

The blonde boy watched Sebastian prepare Ciel his tea for a moment before finally giving an amused chuckle, fingers tightening even more on Claude's wrist and this time allowing his fingernails to score the demon's skin to draw blood.

However, the smile that he gave to Ciel was angelically sweet. "I didn't ask that to start a discussion on philosophical bullshit," Alois told the other contractor. "I was curious, though, to see if you would ever want to be 'liberated' from your particular brand of 'evil.'" The last was said with an askance glance to Sebastian, and Alois' smile turned positively wicked as he took a folder from Canterbury, the house steward.

It was a case file, with all of the information that Alois' demons had managed to bring together thus far about the situation in Rome—clues, crime scenes that had been overlooked or dismissed, Satanistic and cult activities that had been moving into the religious city over the past two decades: pages and pages of valuable information that Ciel could use to solve the case that the Queen had sent him on.

But Alois didn't hand the folder over to the dark-haired boy because there was a catch.

There always was one.

This time, Ciel openly scoffed. The heavy mahogany legs of his chair scraped and grated across marble flooring as the young earl stood. "If that's all that you have to ask me, then obviously I've wasted my time."

As Sebastian came up behind Ciel to give the young lord his top hat back, Alois just tilted his head to the side and released Claude's hand after digging his fingernails deeper still into the pale skin beneath his touch. Now propping his chin in his freed hand, Alois quietly laughed and reached into the folder to pick up a picture of a crime scene that hadn't been listed in the initial report that the Queen had given to Ciel. Then another picture. Another. Another still. There was a thick pile still tucked away in the folder that Alois didn't bother getting to, photographs that were older and that would have taken Ciel a while to come across. The new ones, however, would catch the Phantomhive heir's attention.

Letting them drop to the floor once he showed them to Ciel, the blonde's caricature of a smile twisted further as he brought up one of his favorite pieces: a previously sealed letter—with the addressee's name smudged and undecipherable—from the current pope, Leo XIII.

"Oh? Have you really wasted your time, Ciel~?"

~TBC~


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

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* * *

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The young earl merely raised an eyebrow in question. Despite the tantalizing details of the photographs fluttering to the ground, Ciel found himself unwilling to bend to this earl who behaved like a commoner to pick any of them up. He could have simply ordered Sebastian to do it, but he despised the idea of even his butler bowing down to Trancy.

On one hand, it would be easier to capitulate and obtain information faster. From the smug smile that the other boy was giving him, it was clear that these pictures and whatever was in that sealed envelope were vital hints to this case. However, there was a chance that these had been tampered with. Ciel much preferred gathering his own information and conclusions.

So, instead, he waited with a sardonic expression for Earl Trancy to make his move.

The fact that Ciel Phantomhive said nothing would have discouraged a great many people. But though Ciel said nothing, _he still stayed_. And that was enough for Alois to be willing to tip his hand, though it was still early on in the game.

Alois laughed softly as the silence stretched on, giving a satisfied little purr as the letter and its envelope fell from his fingers to join the pile of photographs on the floor. Silently, with eyes demurely downcast, Hannah stooped down and began gathering all of the bits of paper that Alois had carelessly let slip away.

"Stay the night here, Ciel. Just tonight and without your butler. Play a game of chess with me~"

The boy's smile deepened at that, and Alois stood, though he was slightly unsteady on his feet. "Agree to that and I'll give you the folder." And because Ciel was an overly suspicious brat, the second contractor made sure to add on: "The folder and everything that's been collected and placed in it."

The look that the blonde boy gave Ciel was beneath his thick lashes was challenging, was openly mocking: _Agree to my bargain... unless you're afraid._

And Alois knew that Ciel hated it when enemies taunted him about being afraid of them, of feeling fear and letting intimidation settle deep in his belly.

The young earl's dislike of the taunt was entirely stemmed from his unwillingness to back down from challenge. And it was exactly that which was reflected in the mocking gaze of Alois Trancy.

Ciel took a moment before pulling his mouth into an answering smug smile, "Very well then. A game of chess it is."

He re-seated himself languidly: crossed his ankles, rested his cheek against the cold ring of his family crest, artfully arranged his limbs in an array of indolent confidence. He paused then, tilted his head up to meet his demon's eyes.

"Go on first to the hotel."

Despite the flippant order, Ciel's gaze was sharp. The unspoken '_you know what to do' _filled the air between demon and contractor, soft and insistent as a butterfly's wing beat.

And the glance that Sebastian gave to Ciel beneath his lashes let the young nobleman know that his butler was definitely _not_ happy about being ordered away—no matter the fact that Ciel had ensured that there would be a loophole in that order.

The boy had a tendency of getting kidnapped, and Sebastian just couldn't bring himself to approve of a situation where it seemed as if Ciel was practically _begging_ for it. Add on to how leery he already was of the kumoshitsuji and his contractor…?

Still, an order was an order.

"Yes, my Lord," the demon murmured with a slight bow, inclining his head. He left Ciel's outer wear near the boy, settling them neatly for when Ciel would want to leave; a glance at both Alois and Claude came with the pause at the doorway, but then Sebastian finally left.

When he was alone with the other teen, Alois grinned and reached out to wrap his fingers snugly around Ciel's wrist, his hold on the dark-haired boy possessive and strong. "Your demon seems to be more of a nanny than a butler," the Earl Trancy taunted further, voice soft.

"Hmph," Ciel freed his hand with a jerk, the corner of his mouth quirked sharply upwards. "This from someone who gets fed from his."

He took a sip of tea that Sebastian had prepared earlier. It was tepid, but none of his discomfort reflected on the sardonic expression he wore.

"So, let's begin."

The dishes were cleared in a flurry of activity from the servants, food replaced with a heavy marble chess set.

Claude remained in his proper place, a step behind his master's chair. His face was a mask of granite, as cold as the piece that Ciel Phantomhive picked up. The demon watched as the boy examined the black king with an expression of bemusement before placing it with a solid _click _on his side of the board.

From above his own contractor's head, Claude regarded the other boy with an odd sense of curiosity. He wouldn't have thought that Sebastian Michaelis would have been dismissed so readily and easily. Was the boy simply reckless or just naive to walk so willingly into the spider's lair?

But as the pieces were lain out and put into play, as black overtook the board and forced Alois' shining white into corners, Claude began to suspect that Ciel Phantomhive's smug, silent arrogance stemmed from competence. Claude found himself wondering if why this capable, confident boy needed to summon a demon in the first place. It was interesting, to say the least.

As Ciel's pieces began to overtake the board and Claude began pondering dangerous thoughts—dangerous thoughts to Alois—the blonde paused for a moment to look the chess game over, head tilted to the side. He knew that he was going to lose; Alois knew that he was going to lose even before he stated that he wanted the game. The thing was, though: so many people played the traditional game with Ciel. But Ciel was one of the few who could step away and play outside of the box, was one of the few who saw things in a different perspective.

Alois smirked and then moved one of his rooks diagonally to overtake Ciel's black knights.

It wasn't _cheating_ if both players refused to play by the rules.

"Check," the blonde murmured, voice mockingly demure as he threatened Ciel's king. The symbolism wasn't lost on him—Alois had actually done it on purpose—and it was ever so much fun to see how Ciel would move in answer. As the other boy contemplated his move, Alois asked, "What's it like to have human servants?"

Ciel raised an eyebrow at the other boy's move. A _rook _illegally overpowering his knight? The earl's lips twitched into a small smile, this one genuine. He wondered if Sebastian would be amused if he were here. Which wasn't to say that his butler wasn't already back from "going first to the hotel" and watching from outside the window like some curious, stray cat. The thought was particularly entertaining.

Meeting the other boy's cerulean blue eyes, Ciel gave him a considering smirk before picking up his own rook. He moved it in an arc -in the same way his dead knight would have moved- and took Trancy's white rook.

"Human servants?" Ciel paused as he set the captured piece against the polished, mahogany table. He had never considered the idiot trio as humans - more like well-intentioned natural disasters. Ciel had no doubts that the only reason he still had a household (and for that matter, a house) was because of Sebastian. Still, they were _his_ and he saw no reason to tell Trancy about their shortcomings.

"They're about as useful as can be expected," he settled on. This time, Ciel's gaze traveled around the room to Trancy's own servants as he considered the nature of the other boy's question. Their mirror-like eyes reflected nothing back, "And you with your demon servants?"

"They're about as useful as can be expected," Alois repeated in answer, giving an enigmatic smile that would have impressed Sebastian, should he have actually been in the room. The blonde contractor's head tilted to the side as he looked the chessboard over, lashes lowered to half-mast to veil his gaze. What piece to take next? There were so many options and it was fun to weigh options to decide where to start.

Amused by the symbolism, Alois took his last bishop and moved it straight down, making it move vertically instead of diagonally. Smile sweetening to spun sugar as he looked Ciel in the eye, Alois took the dark-haired boy's second knight. He lightly pushed both pieces over once they were side-by-side on his area of the table, murmuring in a lilting voice as his gaze slid to Claude for just a moment, thoughts flickering quickly through his blue eyes, "—_take a key and lock her up~_"

Laughing quietly, Alois rested his chin in his hand and gave Ciel his full attention.

"I heard that Funtom is getting even more profits of late. I've been considering buying shares in the company, Ciel," the older boy commented, smile once more as enigmatic. He waited for the other boy to answer and make his own move, body indolent and lazy in a feline-esque as he sprawled in his chair. It was fun to finally engage in and play with another human being; Alois had known that he had been around the demons for fair too long, and spending this time with Ciel was further evidence towards that.

"Our profit margin has been increasing with recent products. If you're interested, I can have our Finance Director speak with you." Ciel responded automatically, with as little interest as Trancy to continue in that conversation.

His gaze roamed across the board, calculating possibilities in consideration to their new rules. He always viewed the chessboard as a battlefield, one that his black pieces always dominated. Now, however, the white pieces were unpredictable as his own, their movements constrained only by whimsy and ruthlessness. All in all, Ciel found himself much more engaged that he expected to be.

The fact that Trancy had taken both of his knights was interesting. They were Ciel's favored pieces: he always relished in the unnatural movements, angled and unexpected compared to the more straightforward moves of the others - not to mention the irony of comparing them to his own "dark horse."

After a moment, he reached over and moved an inconsequential pawn a single block forward. It was a move that adhered to the original rules of chess and was as much as a taunt as the first step in Ciel's plan.

"Mmmm~" Alois hummed disinterestedly as he eyed the pawn from beneath his lashes. It was unusual that Ciel had decided to move the pawn in the appropriate, actual manner—it hinted that the dark-haired boy had something in mind.

That was all right, though. It was more fun this way, this uneasy blending of unnatural and natural movements, shifting things into a dark melding of chaos—the fact that the game was now even more unpredictable quickened both Alois' breath and his heartbeat.

He moved a pawn forward, slipping into the knight's typical "L" shape, to claim Ciel's queen for himself. Taking the black piece, Alois smiled lasciviously at the other contractor, licking his prize. Ciel wasn't the only one who enjoyed taunting.

Ciel made a small noise in the back of his throat; whether it was from losing his second most important piece or from Alois _licking_ it, was anyone's guess.

Instead, of wasting more his breath on idle chatter, Ciel picked up his bishop and moved it straight forward, like his lost rook or queen, directly into Trancy's side of the board. He placed it in an open square behind a line of white, neither threatening nor taking any of the other boy's pieces in the process.

Alois watched the bishop from beneath his lashes, head tilted to the side as he contemplated his next move. A smile idly crossed his mouth as he picked up one of Ciel's knights to look it over, fingertips white against the darkness of the piece. "Then I saw three evil spirits…" Alois began, murmuring to himself as he was lost in thought. "They came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet…"

He chuckled softly, exchanging the bishop on his side of the board for the knight that he had stolen away from Ciel. With quick movements, Alois plucked his king off of the board, reaching up to grab Claude by his tie. "þǣm mūðum dēofla," he said with a purring laugh, tightening his hold on Claude to drag the demon down further. The blonde slipped the king into the butler's coat pocket, stealing a slow, wet kiss—letting his teeth nibble over Claude's lower lip, tongue sliding teasingly against the golden-eyed man's own—and eventually broke the kiss with a husky moan.

Glancing over at Ciel from the corner of his gaze, Alois smiled charmingly and settled his chin in his hands, expression expectant. "Your move, Ciel~"

Ciel blinked, then frowned. His burst of outrage stemmed more from the fact that Trancy just hid his king in his butler's pocket than Trancy slovenly kissing his butler. The nonsensical words sprouting out of the other boy's mouth made about as much sense as Trancy's moves. The irony of being given back his knight, only to lose sight of his victory was not lost on Ciel, however.

Still, the earl had no intention of resigning.

A quick glance across the board confirmed that his plan was still in workable condition. Using his now-restored black knight, Ciel was in a perfect position to take Trancy's queen and did so. The only white pieces remaining on the board were a rook, a bishop, and a small handful of pawns - definitely not an adequate defense. Even with its warped rules, a game of chess was a game of chess and Ciel Phantomhive never lost games.

Ah, but how could Ciel win when it was now impossible for him to take the king from _Alois'_ own knight?

So Alois let Ciel take his queen, idly moving his rook diagonally; there wasn't any concern in his moves, the small smile still playing about his mouth as he continued to participate in the game. At the very least, there would be neither a loss nor a win: both boys would be forced to call a stalemate.

And the blonde contractor was willing to accept that.

…for now.

It was quite easy afterwards for Ciel to take the remainder of the white pieces, even without breaking any rules. Trancy was barely putting up a fight, smug with the knowledge that his own king was safe in his butler's pocket.

After the last white piece fell, Ciel reached for the pawn he had previously positioned in Trancy's territory. With one soft, _staccato _tap, he moved it forward, directly into the space that Trancy's white king had occupied.

"My pawn can be promoted to any piece now, Earl Trancy. And I believe I'll switch it for your king." Ciel laced his fingers together and rested his chin on them, "Checkmate."

Alois tilted his head to the side, gaze weighing the other boy. Instead of lashing out in frustration, however—perhaps a move that Claude would have expected from the blonde boy—Alois leaned forward and gave Ciel an affectionate peck on his mouth.

"Well-played, Ciel," Alois murmured, smile wicked and eyes dancing in amusement as he settled back into his chair. Idly, he reached up and plucked the king from Claude's pocket, tossing it over to the other.

Ciel caught the king and clenched his fist around it, nails digging into his own palm as he felt his face heat. How dare Trancy take such liberties! If the blond boy hadn't moved as quickly as he had, Ciel would have slapped him soundly on the cheek. Scowling, the earl stood abruptly, the heavy chair beneath him scraping shrilly in protest.

He walked over to the window and was surprised to find the scenery outside bathed with the orange light of a sunset. Had they really played five hours over one game of chess? Ciel was rarely immersed in a game enough to lose track of time: even his best opponents never lasted past the hour.

"Well, Earl Trancy," the boy kept his back towards Alois, his small figure harshly outlined by the reddening sky, "do you have any other entertainment or should I turn in for the night?"

"Alois," the boy corrected, finally bored with the title of his role within society rolling off of Ciel's tongue. It wasn't who he was; it wasn't him. He was _Alois_. "And I do have other entertainment—a game that will let us get to know one another and become the _best _of friends~"

The older contractor chortled in amusement, slumping down in his chair so that he could pillow his chin atop his crossed forearms—proper posture be damned. "I'm sure that you've heard of the Two Truths and a Lie game, correct? Shall we play Two Lies and a Truth?"

Suddenly, however, Alois eyes sparkled and danced beneath his thick lashes, the color brightly gleaming with wicked delight. "…or we could always play Le Truc."

And instead of money, the appraising look that Alois gave to Ciel let the dark-haired boy know just what Alois would have dared Ciel to bet in place of monetary wealth. Of course it would be _Alois _to suggest a Victorian Era game of strip poker.

The black-haired boy scowled back as their gazes met. The fact that Alois Trancy had just raked his eyes across his body sent a shiver of disgust through Ciel. His fingernails, cutting sharp half-moons into his palms, were the only thing that kept him still - he wouldn't give this lewd, commoner earl the satisfaction of seeing him react.

"Truth and lies it is then," he replied a beat later, his tone of voice even as he smoothed his face into a neutral expression.

The smile that Alois gave to Ciel in answer was coy, pleased at Ciel's decision; perhaps the dark-haired contractor would have realized that that was the game that he had truly wanted.

His time with Earl Trancy—the old, now-dead bastard—had left him rather numb to sex, interest only truly peaking when it was with Claude. The demon had been the first person to have made Alois come, and it was the demon who Alois was intrigued in seeing nude—though, of course, that may have had something to do with the fact that the blonde had _never_ seen Claude naked.

Besides, Ciel looked to be too scrawny to be "appetizing."

"Leave us," Alois ordered with a glance over to the demons. Waiting until the five of them were gone, the blonde once more watched Ciel from beneath his lashes, smile softening with some unknown emotion. As he spoke his statements, he lifted a finger from his right hand. "I'm not the Queen's Spider. My favorite game to play is chess. The demons in my employ are all contracted to me."

Ciel forced himself to focus on the game and ignore the rising queasiness within him. It was quelled soon enough as he pondered on Alois' words.

The first was obviously a lie. The evil aristocrats were always that: _aristocrats._ It was only prominent aristocratic houses that became the Queen's servants and if the Trancy household was deigned to be the Queen's Spider, then that would not deviate.

The second was the oddity - while the other boy had obviously enjoyed the chess game, it was anyone's guess if it was his favorite. Ciel had the distinct feeling that Alois did not play proper games often, if at all. Especially since he kept _licking _the pieces.

The third was the only interesting statement - could Alois Trancy be contracted to all five of the demons? As the young earl considered this, he recalled an odd thing Sebastian had once revealed at the beginning of the contract: 'the closer the contract symbol is placed to the eyes, the more powerful the contract.' After hearing that, it had been his first order to tell the demon exactly where to place his own.

Therefore, in order for a contract to be effective, it should have been relatively close to Alois' eyes. Still, other than the brief view of the contract on Alois' tongue when he had licked his queen, Ciel had not seen any other marks.

"The truth is that chess is your favorite game," the black-haired boy decided, "surprising, all things considering."

Alois laughed at that.

"Wrong," he told the other boy, tone genial. "Two choices left, Ciel. Which one is the truth?"

Ciel found himself frowning again, and considered. Either his demon had been lying or he was being blinded by his own assumptions. And his demon never lied so blatantly.

"The truth is that you are not the Queen's Spider," the black-haired boy leaned against the windowsill, framed by the darkening sky outside, "Or that you're lying about everything."

"I lie," Alois admitted readily, smirking as he kept his chin comfortably pillowed on his crossed arms, watching as the lanterns in the dining room flickered on to light Ciel with a muted glow. "I lie all of the time. Why not? But I'm not right now: when I bother to outline the structure, I'm in control and so I stick to my rules. You're the same way, too, aren't you? Except with manipulation."

Before Ciel had the chance to respond, however, Alois brought up a hand to lightly tap a finger to his lips, giving the other contractor a saucy wink. "But there was a truth in my list; I only have one contract, and so the truth is that I'm not the Queen's Spider. I was picked to be a Trancy and wasn't given a choice. But with the limp-dicked old geezer knocked off finally, I can make _my own_ choices. And I choose not to be in this case. But for you, Ciel: one truth, two lies. Say them."

"Hmph. For someone who chose not to be a Trancy, you certainly flaunt your title." Ciel's eye flickered orange in the candlelight, dark gaze as polished and hard as obsidian.

"But very well," the earl crossed his arms and gave the other boy an unruffled expression he had adopted from Sebastian. "I am the Queen's Watchdog. My favorite game is chess. My demon has never lied to me."

In reply to Ciel's comment about Alois flaunting his title, the blonde just smirked. What was the point of denying oneself riches and comfort when the opportunity arose? He hadn't asked for the power, hadn't asked for the title and the apparent responsibilities that came with it—but now that Alois _had_ the power, he'd be foolish not to warp it to his control. It was the payment he was owed for the time spent in the previous Earl Trancy's bed.

However, the game was still in play:

Alois pointed at Ciel, fingers in the shape of a gun. He "bang"ed the other silently, smile deepening to be surprisingly sensual, shifting so that the lanterns' light played over the gold of his hair to make it glow like a halo. He knew that Ciel wasn't aroused by the posturing, that it perhaps disgusted the other—but Alois had grown used to using his sexuality as a hard-forged weapon in winning his games that his body had separated itself from "him" where Alois internalized. It was a thing, made to be used in whatever context possible. No one, however, could touch "him." And that was what made Alois laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh _and laugh_ over the context of his contract with Claude: the demon wanted his soul for granting Alois' wish, but the boy had no wishes and had no soul—he'd sold it and his body both to survive when his foot first touched the wagon's step, and he and the other boys began their journey to the Trancy manor. So it was always, always, _always_ a lose-lose situation and the only one who was ever aware of it was Alois. It was an ever-so grand joke~!

"Claude lies to me," Alois murmured, voice musing. "He also doesn't understand me, but I think that that has more to do with the fact that he doesn't want to bother. I look at him, sometimes, and think to myself 'How boring! How dull! How _methodical_!' and he looks at me and his gaze is as blank as a piece of parchment. There's no comprehension. Oh, but you, Ciel. But _you_… You and your demon look at one another and with just a shift of expression, you carry on entire conversations silently. Your demon _understands_. Your demon has never lied to you."

It was that look that Ciel and Sebastian had exchanged before the other demon had left, the way that they reacted to one another, the way that no words were even needed: it was an instinctive knowledge that linked contractor and demon, twining them together tightly; it was a type of shackle, Alois supposed, while in contrast a gorge stretched away between him and Claude and all that ever came to either one of them were distorted echoes.

Silent now, Alois knocked over the knight that he had given back to Ciel.

Slowly, Ciel gave exactly three claps, each echoing in the darkened, hollow expanse of the dining room, "You're wrong Alois: my demon has never lied to me... like a human that is. He's lied countless times like a demon, however."

The dark-haired boy's sapphire eye sparkled with mirth. Sebastian has always told him the truth that Ciel demanded - and Ciel had long realized that there were no absolute truths in the world. His demon only told the truth because Ciel ordered those truths to be made into reality. Sebastian followed his orders to the letter - however, if there was a single aspect that Ciel let slip, a single moment of hesitation or carelessness, then Sebastian would follow Ciel's untruth to the letter. And thus, Sebastian would have lied to him - not as a human, but as a demon.

And it was with this understanding between them that Ciel forged on. It was because of this understanding that Ciel would never make a mistake.

Like Alois said, however, Ciel didn't always play fair. All his statements could be construed as both lies and truth. It was a sort of childish revenge for Alois hiding his king earlier.

Ciel's first statement could have been true: he was known and recognized as the Queen's Watchdog. However, he himself was not necessarily the Watchdog – the Phantomhive house was. It was a role to be taken on by the head of the Phantomhive household, and while Ciel was the current head, anyone else of the same blood could theoretically have filled it.

The second statement was simply a matter of perspective. Ciel was very good at playing chess: he would even consider it his most-often played, favorite game. However, Ciel was also very good playing chess in life, the pieces replaced with humans and one demon he planned to use to obtain his revenge. In that respect, Ciel hated it every time he had to discard a pawn, hated it every time he pulled the trigger and took someone else's piece, hated the twisted game he was forcing himself to play. Nonetheless, he was still very good at it.

"So, strike one, Alois," the earl used the other boy's name deliberately, warmly. "Try again."

Alois stirred at that, gaze narrowing as Ciel's words tugged at his thoughts. He glanced up, silent, and stared into the amused glint of Ciel's bared eye. He lightly drummed his fingertips on top of the table that they had been previously sitting at, thoughts flickering through his gaze—too fast for Ciel to follow because Alois was a mutable, ever-changing mind. Nothing ever stayed the same. Everything was constantly in flux.

When Alois finally answered, his words came in a low murmur, voice slightly distant and distracted, almost as if he had forgotten the fact that he and Ciel were playing a game and it was his turn to narrow down the choices left to him. "We're the same, you and I: opposite sides of the same coin… Hn."

"That's one thing you're right about," Ciel took a breath and walked towards the blonde contractor, each step slow and deliberate. He stopped in front of Alois, hands resting in his coat pockets. "And like any coin, there's only one side that lands face up when flipping it."

"_Don't_," Alois murmured, his tone of voice suddenly slipping low and dangerous. His eyes flashed with feral intent, glinting in the amber light that glowed through the room. "Don't ruin tonight."

Alois stood then, reaching out and hooking his fingers on Ciel's sleeve to leave the dining room, steps predatorily as he brought the other earl behind him. Hannah watched as the two boys walked past her, eyes quietly contemplative as she took in Alois' possessive hold upon the second contractor.

He wasn't in the mood for games anymore, which meant that it was time for bed.

Ciel allowed himself to be dragged an exact ten steps before he yanked his sleeve out of the other boy's grasp. Instead of lashing out at Alois, however, he followed the blonde at a sedate pace.

His steps were unhurried as he considered this unusual evening. The odd, unstable contractor was an interesting puzzle - a puzzle that Ciel neither knew nor understood the rules for. Still, this vulgar, demanding earl was an oddity that Ciel could not ignore.

And so, he allowed himself to follow Alois Trancy into the bedroom.

Once they were in the master bedroom—the only bedroom in the suite that the Trancy household was renting that _wasn't_ for the servants—Alois seemed to lose the wild, threatening air, allowing it to fade away into the background, dissipating as if it had never made an appearance. Instead, the smile that he gave to Ciel was particularly impish.

"Unfortunately, I didn't bring any clothing for guests, so you'll have to borrow one of my nightshirts…" Alois said as he held up a nightshirt from the small pile that Hannah had made sure to pack (since Alois seemed to go through them rather quickly when he was feeling rambunctious and Claude happened to be around).

The nightshirt in question, however, was an absolute monstrosity.

Ciel couldn't stop the furrow that formed between his brows as he stared at that frilly... _thing_. For one, it was much too short to be reasonably called a nightshirt. For another, it seemed to have been created by a designer determined to use at least twenty yards of lace. (He rejected the idea that it was Lizzie - if it had been, the shirt would have been pink instead of white.) The sky blue ribbon threading through the collar was the straw that broke the camel's back.

"Absolutely not," his voice had a horrified edge to it. "I'll sleep in my shirt."

Alois parted his lips innocently, eyes going wide with feigned surprise. "Really? But Ciel, it'll be uncomfortable to sleep in because of the starch and, besides, it'll mean that you won't be _at all_ presentable when you leave tomorrow morning. Dare I say that you may end up looking positively _frumpy_ with the wrinkles from sleeping in it~"

Tauntingly, the blonde wiggled the nightshirt in the other boy's direction.

There was a long moment where neither boy moved, the nightshirt held out between them in a flimsy barrier of silk and lace.

"Fine," Ciel scowled at the other boy, his capitulation driven by the fact that sleeping in his shirt _would _have been uncomfortable, "Provided you get me a pair of scissors with it."

Alois sighed dramatically at that, letting his mouth settle into a disappointed moue. "Ah, at this rate—with you cutting up my nightshirts and Claude ripping them to shreds—I won't have anything to wear to bed~"

Still, though, Alois handed over the nightclothes with a sly grin before turning to the door to the bedroom, knowing that it wouldn't be long before Claude came in to ready him for bed.

As if on cue, the door opened with a soft click. Claude Faustus stepped into the bedroom, bathing both the contractors in the soft golden light of the candelabra he carried. His eyes concealed by the reflection of his glasses, the demon took in the scene silently: Alois seemed amused while a slightly-flushed Ciel Phantomhive openly glared at him.

It was the first time Claude had ever seen his contractor look... pleasant.

Still, the demon kept to his protocol. "Please excuse the interruption," he made a slight bow and set the candelabra down on the dresser, "If you will allow me to prepare you both for bed..."

"Me first," Alois ordered as he settled on the edge of the bed. "Ciel has some adjusting to do on the nightshirt that he's borrowing~"

Frankly, the blonde was curious to see if Ciel would actually let Claude prepare him for bed or if he'd try to stubborn it out and ready himself. To allow himself to be touched, to be undressed… Alois wouldn't have been surprised if Ciel ended up leeching onto his noble pride to attempt it himself.

He hid a smile, offering up a foot for Claude to relieve him of his boot. Freed from the shoe soon enough, Alois playfully trailed a sock-covered toe along the edge of Claude's jawline. It never fazed Claude—ever—when his contractor teased as the demon dressed or undressed him.

For now, Alois' attention had shifted completely to his demon, Ciel momentarily forgotten.

Claude resigned himself to routine as he finished unlacing the other boot, decidedly ignoring the foot Alois was pawing at his face with. Only when both shoes were off and neatly placed did he capture the boy's ankle. Slowly, meticulously, he traced his gloved hands up his contractor's leg, fingers lightly caressing the sharp arch behind Alois' knee. In a fluid motion, he unfastened the ribbon securing the sock and with equal care, peeled the garment off.

From the corner of his eye, a scowling, blushing Ciel Phantomhive slammed the bathroom door shut. A few seconds afterwards, there was the curious sound of ripping fabric.

The demon briefly wondered if all contractors had quirks before he started on Alois' other sock.

Hearing that ripping sound, Alois giggled softly. Idly, he murmured, "I like him. He's cute," as the blonde contractor watched as Claude continued undressing him. He liked the time that the demon took, liked how Claude touched him and was meticulous with each movement. There was never anything wasted when it came to his particular butler.

In a surprising, kitten-esque gesture, Alois tilted Claude's chin upwards to steal a chaste kiss.

The demon barely moved in response. Since Alois' behavior yesterday, Claude had decided to carry on with his farce of a butler for only as long as necessary. It would be too much of a waste to simply kill his contractor now, especially with all the planning and arrangements Claude had already made.

Besides, Claude was rather intrigued by how... different Sebastian Michaelis was. While the other demon was rather prone to irrational whimsy, his display of possessiveness had been startling - especially considering their previous encounter. Then, the other demon hadn't seemed bothered and relinquished his contractor to Claude with barely a protest.

Claude found himself wondering about the reason behind the change. Could it have been the influence of Ciel Phantomhive? Claude dismissed the thought: a demon becoming attached to a human, being _affected_ by a human, was preposterous. It was simply against their nature.

His eyes flickered back to his own contractor. Claude felt himself inwardly scoff as he toyed with the idea of being affected by Alois. Still, his hands were gentle as they undid the ribbon at the boy's neck, unbuttoned the boy's shirt, smoothed over the sharp wings of the boy's shoulderblades.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself, Danna-sama," he murmured.

"I was," Alois said quietly in turn. Still, though, he stilled easily as Claude continued to undress him, raising his arms so that the butler could slip on his nightshirt.

His previous good humor had faded slightly, and Alois was withdrawing into himself when Claude hadn't responded to his kiss; he was more subdued, almost contemplative, though Alois' lips quirked into a small smile when his head re-emerged. Lightly, he said to himself, "Ond he forþon næfre noht leasunge ne idles leoþes wyrcan ne meahte, ac efne þa an þa ðe to æfæstnisse belumpon, ond his þa æfæstan tungan gedeofanade singan."

It didn't matter if Claude got the reference, if Claude understood the words; he still wouldn't understand the point behind them, the way that Ciel's demon would. Alois had been thinking as he had watched Sebastian's interactions with Ciel. And Claude's lack of response over the kiss hadn't gone unnoticed. The blonde contractor was almost—mostly—stable as he looked up into the demon's eyes, meeting his gaze through the reflection of the other's glasses.

"That will be all for tonight. Go now."

The demon gave a short bow in reply, "Yes, your Highness."

He stood then, his movements perfect and mechanical as he opened the door. Before exiting, however, Claude found himself glancing back at Alois. The boy's hair was a halo of flickering gold in the candlelight. Drawn in sharp contrast between light and shadow, the boy somehow looked more sane than Claude had seen him in a long time.

_'And he therefore never could make any sort of lying or idle songs, but just those alone which pertained to piety and those which were fitting for his pious tongue to sing,_' Claude mentally translated, from a dead human language centuries past. It was fitting for Alois to spout perfect gibberish all while looking at him with such clear eyes.

The demon looked away and closed the door with a soft _click._

"Sweet dreams, Claude Faustus," Alois said to the closed door. He remained still for a moment before shaking his head roughly, constrained violence within the gesture, eyes closed tightly; when they re-opened, they sparkled with mirth, and the older contractor pranced gaily over to the bathroom door to fling it open.

"Ciel! Claude's gone, which means that we can cuddle up in bed now~~"

The grin that he gave to the dark-haired boy was pure mischief.

Ciel predictably scowled back. The nightshirt hung off his left shoulder from a too-enthusiastic rip but at least it had significantly less lace than it started with. He held his dress clothes in a rumpled pile as he padded out of the bathroom. Pushing past Alois, the dark-haired boy made his way towards the side of the large, plush bed facing the window and deposited the pile haphazardly. Under the cover of his clothes, Ciel felt for the cool weight of his revolver and slipped it under his pillow.

He then made an attempt at folding. Ciel quickly discovered the jacket was hopeless and conceded to drape it over a nearby chair. His vest and shirt soon followed. His trousers were eventually bundled into a small roll, in which he stuffed his socks and tie.

After he concluded that nothing else could be done, Ciel climbed into bed. Despite all his instincts screaming at him not to, he forced himself to lay with his back to Alois, "If you say what you mean to him, you might get what you want."

In answer to that, Alois burrowed close against Ciel's back, comfortably propping his chin atop the younger boy's head as he spooned with the second contractor. "But that would entail giving up control in doing so, something that you would probably be able to relate to," came the soft murmur as Alois pointedly dangled Ciel's small revolver that he had squirreled away from beneath the other's pillow, hovering it before Ciel's face to let the other know that Alois had found it. He wasn't insulted, though—and, in actuality, Alois couldn't help but be amusedly impressed.

With Ciel snatching the weapon back, the blonde boy lazily draped his arm over the other's waist, closing his eyes with his chin still resting atop Ciel's soft, silky-fine hair. "…hey, Ciel. How'd he come to you?"

"Don't touch me!" Ciel flinched from the other boy, drawing the sheets around him. He'd been biting his tongue all this time, but Alois' touches had grown more brazen and Ciel found himself fighting down nausea. It took time and sheer force of will for his racing pulse to slow and his breathing to even.

The silence stretched liked the shadows of their dimming lanterns, its flames flickering as candles burned themselves out.

"...I didn't summon him," Ciel finally said into near-darkness, "but when he appeared, I was the one who kept him."

Alois fell silent at that, propped up on an elbow as he looked down at the younger boy. He watched, gaze shadowed as he considered things, weighing them carefully in the constantly twisting labyrinth of his mind.

The flinch had been telling.

The demand to stop touching him even more so.

Alois still remembered what his own scream had sounded like as it echoed through the bedroom at the Trancy manor, his voice bouncing back and distorting, and just as easily disregarded because the touches had then become that much more vicious. And the man had made sure that they hurt even more to punish the boy in his bed for the original rejection.

The contractor remembered the words. He remembered.

Carefully, gesture as pointed as the teasing with the revolver, Alois took some of the pillows and made a barrier between his and Ciel's bodies so that he wouldn't accidentally touch the boy as he slept during the night. They both had their own personal nightmares—their own demons of a different sort; Alois now knew that he had learned to deal with his much differently than the other.

"Good night, Ciel," came the quiet murmur as the blonde boy settled back down.

The other boy did not move, even when he felt the bed shift and the silken hiss of sheets. The dark-haired boy stiffened when he felt a touch against his back, but when he turned he found a line of pillows between him and Alois.

It was surprising that Alois would do this for him. Ciel had thought that the other boy would have obnoxiously chosen to take advantage of his weakness. Even though they had just met today, this streak of compassion? pity? was something that Ciel would have thought impossible for Alois Trancy.

Grudgingly, Ciel found himself appreciating the gesture.

Reaching towards his right eye, the boy pulled his eyepatch loose and placed it on the nightstand.

"Good night... Alois," he softly acquiesced.

That speaking of Alois' name, however… that made the gesture worth it.

Smile small but absent, Alois snuggled down under the sheets, wrapping himself up with the extra amount to cocoon himself against the cold of the night—the one luxury that he truly, happily, and unrepentantly took advantage of now that he had wealth enough to spend. It wasn't much long after when Alois' breathing deepened and steadied, dropping off into a relaxed and dreamless sleep.

And with the blonde contractor no longer aware of the world around him, Sebastian stepped out from the shadows to make his way towards the chair where Ciel had left his clothes so that he could fold them and keep them from wrinkling.

Small things could still be appreciated, though: at least the nightshirt that Alois was letting Ciel borrow didn't have any buttons for the dark-haired earl to fumble through.

Under the covers, Ciel gave his demon a half-lidded, amused look: trust Sebastian to take care of his clothes first. His right eye glowed faintly, a dull beacon in the darkness.

If Alois wasn't sleeping soundly next to him, Ciel would have compared his butler to some stray cat burglar. That or the little dwarves who fixed clothing during the night.

Ah, but Sebastian certainly had much more sophisticated aesthetics than said _dwarves_.

The clothes neatly folded and arranged for the morning, the demon turned to his young contractor, looking Ciel over with a raised eyebrow as he made his way closer. "My, my. I wonder what Lady Elizabeth would say should she ever find out that you shared your bed with another person—and a male, at that," Sebastian teased softly, pitching his voice so that only Ciel could hear.

The butler knelt on one knee before the bed, quirking a small smile at seeing that Ciel was unharmed; in fact, the one that had taken on the most damage for the evening appeared to be the nightshirt that the boy currently donned. Amused and wanting to make a further point, the demon lightly trailed a fingertip over Ciel's bottom lip: he had seen Alois' stolen kiss, too.

The contractor quirked an eyebrow at his demon before pushing his hand away.

"I'm sure she'd have more to say about my own butler touching me inappropriately," Ciel took a small breath and finally settled beneath the blankets, "Were you outside, watching the whole time like some pervert?"

Sebastian chuckled at that, smile sly as he glanced at Ciel from the corner of his eyes. "Wouldn't 'guardian angel' be more appropriate?" the demon asked, tone so innocent that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

"Hmph," Ciel couldn't help but grin. The boy turned his face into the pillow, only his right eye visible and glinting with amusement. Ciel was mostly blind on that side and what he could make out of his demon was only a hazy, dark shadow. Rather than see, however, he seemed to _sense_ where Sebastian was, as if the contract embedded in his eye sought its counterpart.

"If you were one, you would've saved me from this shirt," he sniffed.

"But it suits you so well, bocchan," Sebastian said in answer, sly smile just deepening and turning openly amused as Ciel relaxed and let his good humor emerge. It was always intriguing to see his contractor light-heartedly playful, as he was now. Ciel's entire demeanor changed, and it stirred… _something_… within the mahogany-eyed man.

Alois stirred then, though he didn't waken. Bringing a finger up to his mouth to quiet any response that Ciel might have had, Sebastian leaned forward and let his warm breath fan over the boy's throat, lips brushing the pale shell of the earl's ear as he whispered lowly, "Go to sleep. I'll watch over you through the night."

In response, Ciel simply closed his eyes. He shifted and settled, blanketed under the comforting weight of his demon's shadow. In a few more moments, his breathing evened.

Sebastian's smile, for just a brief moment, softened imperceptibly.

He moved to the chair in the corner of the bedroom, settling into it comfortably so that he might watch the hours go by with Ciel beneath his watch: the boy would be safe from any harm while his "guardian angel" was near.

~TBC~


End file.
